The Clan Wars
by Duesal10
Summary: Naruto barely defeated the Jūbi, narrowly escaping with his life. However, when the beast explodes and shatters the world, he and the rest of Team Seven are rescued by the first shinobi, the Rikudō Sennin himself. Will they survive their trials when they are given another chance in the Warring Clans Era, or will they fall like so many before them? No Yaoi. No Bashing. Time-Travel.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note****: **_This story revolves around Team Seven as a whole. Also, there will be no bashing. Will I exploit character flaws to prevent OOCness? Yes. Will I ever bash? No._

_Btw, since it might not be as obvious as I think it is, this is my first ever attempt at writing. The first few chapters are a bit rough, but I get a lot better in my later chapters. So... keep reading? And don't forget to review. I appreciate all forms of feedback._

_On with the actual story itself. It starts in a world (exactly the same as Kishimoto's, but doesn't my word-choice just scream AU?) where the Shinobi World Alliance lost the first confrontation with the Juubi. In their arrogance, Obito and Madara allowed the survivors to escape and regroup in Konoha. The final battle took place a mere ten miles away from the Hidden Leaf._

_On another note, this story was started when Chapter 620 of the manga released. Thus, the Juubi will look a lot less powerful than it actually is..._

* * *

The Clan Wars

Prologue

Naruto stepped away from the smoking carcass of the Juubi. It was finally over. After years in the chaos of war, they had finally prevailed. The 'Eye of the Moon Plan' had failed at last. Madara had been killed.

Then he groaned as a spike of pain ambushed him, grinding his nerves mercilessly. As he dropped to his knees, he heard someone cry out.

His chest was a landscape, littered with cuts so deep that if he didn't have the healing powers of the Kyuubi jinchuuriki, he would have died. As it was, Naruto was having difficulty staying awake. He was kneeling in a pool of his own blood.

"Naruto!" Naruto squinted through his pain to locate the source of the voice. He heard the voice again, this time sounding slightly more desperate.

"_Naruto!"_ Naruto's eyes narrowed momentarily as he searched in his foggy mind trying to place the voice, and then widened as the realization dawned upon him.

"Sasuke…" he murmured. He tried pushing himself into a standing position with his hand, but pain lanced up his arm, effectively immobilizing him.

"Gaahh!" Naruto screamed as a new wave of pain raged through his ravaged body. Kurama was far too exhausted to aid his healing now. It had taken almost all of Kurama's strength to defeat the Juubi, and even then they could have easily lost.

Suddenly Sasuke appeared beside Naruto, lightning arching all over his body. Sakura followed suite moments later. "Naruto!" they both cried out in alarm. Their teammate looked like he should have been dead!

Sakura pushed Naruto down onto his back, ignoring his tears and protests while Sasuke dispelled his lightning. Covering her hands with glowing green chakra, she cut through Naruto's orange bodysuit and began a full-body examination.

"Oh, hold still!" she snapped at Naruto who was still struggling to get up. As painful as it was for him, Naruto would only injure himself even more if he tried to struggle. "Sasuke, hold him down," Sakura ordered. The Uchiha complied while Naruto shut his eyes and let out a slight whimper.

Sasuke looked down at his teammate and smirked. "The Juubi really did a number on you, huh Dobe?" Sasuke said as he tried unsuccessfully to hide the worry in his voice.

Naruto gritted his teeth and opened his eyes momentarily and found Sasuke's blood-red Sharingan gazing down at him. His glare intensified immediately.

"Teme," he growled in warning. "What are you trying to do to me? Why is your Sharingan active?"

Sasuke dropped his smirk. "This is to help you Naruto. This is too much pain for anyone to handle, even you." Then he closed his eyes and inhaled.

When he opened his eyes moments later, his three-tomoed Sharingan was replaced with a red series of loops against a black border. The Mangekyō Sharingan blazed to life in front of Naruto.

The blond nodded in acceptance and relief. "Do it." he said. Man, he _needed_ to be out of it right now. The pain was _excruciating_...

"Hurry up!" the pink-haired medic urged, "He's running out of time, and I need him knocked-out to start the operation!" Sasuke gave her a slight nod, and then he stared into Naruto's azure-blue orbs. "Tsukuyomi," he whispered, catching Naruto's head as he slumped back down into the ground unconscious.

"Good, now help me take his shirt off." Sakura ordered as she ran her chakra-cloaked hands down Naruto's chest. Sakura grimaced as several of Naruto's cuts squirted blood when she ran her hands over them.

It was a miracle that Naruto hadn't died already with wounds like these. Hell, she doubted that Tsunade-sama could survive what he had been through, even with her mitotic-regeneration. But then, Naruto had always had healing powers worlds apart from anyone else.

She closed her eyes and began to probe Naruto's wound with Sasuke on standby. Sakura frowned. Nearly all of his internal organs had been ruptured. The Kyuubi was helping, but it could only do so much in the end. She began to pour chakra into Naruto's wounds, reaching for his organs first.

As Sakura's green chakra passed through her teammate's organs, his cells revitalized instantly and began dividing at a dizzying rate. This kind of healing was effective, but risky because it shortened the patient's lifespan.

Cells had a set amount of times that they could divide and there was no way to get around that. However, it was preferable to heal in this way if the wounds were serious, as the revitalization of cells worked extremely fast and could save precious seconds— seconds which other techniques often lost. In other words, medics in general chose to shave off a few months of a person's life in favor of saving them from an assured death. It was simply in the patient's best interest. Better a shorter life than no life at all.

Sakura concentrated and placed her hands on Naruto's chest just below his heart where the damage was the most extensive. She began pumping chakra into Naruto's cells in an effort to banish his burns and cuts. It truly amazed her just how much Naruto could take without collapsing. Then again, he always was an idiot who never knew how to give up. He never quit, even when Sasuke went rouge for four years or in the final showdown against the Juubi.

After his first confrontation with the tailed-beast in which most of the Shinobi Alliance had perished, Naruto decided to face the Juubi alone. All to protect everyone. By himself. Baka!

But Sakura gazed fondly down at Naruto's now-relaxed face. He always tried so hard. She sighed in relief as she felt his organs knit themselves back together under her hands. She looked up into Sasuke's anxious expression and said, "He'll live, but I'm gonna need to keep going for a few more minutes just in case."

Sasuke nodded in silent relief and glared down at the blond-headed dobe. Like hell Naruto would die here. They had so much that they still had to do. Konoha was in ruins and the rest of the elemental countries weren't that much better off.

Tsunade died after healing the other kages, and the village had unanimously demanded that Naruto accept the position of the Rokudaime Hokage. The only thing stopping Naruto was that the world was about to end. Literally.

Sakura finished off the surgery by supplying Naruto's cells with one last burst of chakra. Then she closed the skin over his wounds by running a chakra-coated finger over the rupture making the cuts all but disappear.

"I never realized that you were this good" Sasuke said in his typical but-I'm-still-better-than-you-in-every-way voice. Sakura sighed.

"Well, you might have realized it sooner if you hadn't been so bent on revenge." Sasuke's face fell and Sakura immediately regretted what she had just said.

"S-Sasuke… I…"

"Save it Sakura." Sasuke snapped. "You're right. The only reason that I even returned is because I owe Naruto. There's nothing left for me in Konohagakure."

She glared dangerously at him, channeling chakra into her fist.

"Except for you" Sasuke finished quickly. "I had to at least apologize to you for leaving you."

"Good!" she chirped sweetly, her anger evaporating. "But don't forget, you owe the village too!"

Sasuke made a face. Konoha had been far less than welcoming upon his return. The only things that stopped them from outright attacking him were Naruto's support as the future Hokage and the fact that the Juubi was less than ten miles away from the village gates.

"Somehow, I don't think the rest of the village is all that accepting of my return…"

Then they glanced around them. The ground was littered with bodies. A majority of the dead bore the mark of the Hidden Leaf, but there were others from Cloud, Sand, Rock and Mist. Sakura normally would have tried to save as many ninja as possible, but that wasn't necessary here... Everyone but Naruto was dead.

After their initial defeat at the hands of the Juubi, Konoha had become the unofficial regrouping point for the war effort. Unofficial because the kages had all been killed in battle, and Command Central was wiped out.

Sakura was the first to break the uncomfortable silence. "Somehow, I think that you're the least of their worries." Glancing down at the now completely relaxed Naruto she continued. "Besides, you have Naruto's full support. The villagers follow him in everything now"

Even though Sasuke knew of Naruto's newfound popularity, this still surprised him. He had returned for barely five minutes before the Juubi arrived.

"Is that so?" he murmured in wonder. So miracles could happen after all.

He could still remember when the entire village hated Naruto for the tailed-beast inside of him. It really was hard to connect the village pariah with the hero that Naruto had become.

Without warning, Naruto bolted upright into a sitting position, nearly knocking Sakura to the ground. Sasuke jumped three yards back, not quite sure what to expect.

Naruto's eyes snapped open. Sasuke noticed that they were ringed with orange while the irises were amber with horizontal slits for pupils. He looked to Sakura in confusion.

"Sennin Mode" Sakura said by way of explanation.

Sasuke just frowned. "I know that! _Why_ is Naruto in Sage Mode right now? Look at him. He's not even conscious!"

"What?" Sakura questioned in utter disbelief.

After multiple fruitless attempts to get a response from Naruto, Sakura was shocked to discover that Sasuke was right. Naruto appeared to have been passively gathering nature energy while Sakura preformed his surgery. She couldn't begin to wonder why, or even how.

Then Naruto stood up. He formed the seal for the shadow-clone jutsu and two other similarly inattentive Narutos poofed into existence next to him. They then began walking toward the still smoking husk of the Juubi. Now that the tailed-beasts were free, the Juubi was completely deprived of chakra and may as well have been dead.

"Sakura." She barely even noticed. Naruto might hurt himself. It was her job to make sure he didn't do anything stupid. This time Sasuke spoke with more urgency in his voice. "Sakura!"

Sakura looked up into Sasuke's worried eyes. He explained, "I have no idea what that dobe's trying to do, but you sure as hell don't want to get caught in the crossfire."

Sakura looked back to Naruto and nodded in reluctance. She wasn't sure what he would do now, but she would wait. Sennin mode was lethal for anyone in its vicinity.

Suddenly, the air was punctuated with a high-pitched screeching sound as Naruto rapidly advanced with his jutsu. It intensified to excruciating levels as Naruto poured staggering amounts of chakra out of his hand, and the two clones aiding him added wind chakra and compressed all of the raw power together into a spiraling shruiken-like rasengan.

"**FUUTON: RASEN SHURIKEN"** Naruto declared as he held the spinning wind-style rasengan up over his head. Then he did something new. Something completely Naruto. Six more clones poofed into existence and began working on two more rasenshruikens.

Sasuke's eyes bulged as he activated his Sharingan. He understood one rasenshruiken in sage mode. He even understood three, given Naruto's massive chakra reserves. But at the same time? It just wasn't possible. How could Naruto even _have_ that much chakra control? By now, the shrieking noise was deafening, but he ignored it. Sakura on the other hand gritted he teeth and pressed her hand over her ears.

The wind howled along the battlefield, rustling the many bodies that it found. The Narutos paused for a moment, with three of them holding the massive chakra balls over their heads.

Then Naruto spoke, but the voice was not his own. It was as if a far older, almost ancient person was speaking in Naruto's place, his voice marred by dispair.

"With the destruction of the ten-tails, the world shall know peace once again. My mistake will forever be erased from this world."

The other clones dispelled and the remaining Naruto's launched their deadly projectiles in a simultaneous toss. **"****SANJUU**** FUUTON: RASEN SHURIKEN!"** The attacks met in midair, but instead of canceling each other out, they merged.

There was now a gargantuan ball of volatile wind chakra as nearly big as a tailed-beast bomb racing toward the Juubi's husk. It hit, and the world exploded in light.

**Author's Note****: 'Sanjuu' means 'triple'. So Naruto's last attack was a triple fuuton: rasenshuriken.**


	2. Chapter 1: White Room

**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters. Totally wish I did...**

The Clan Wars

Chapter 1: The White Room

Team seven didn't stand a chance against the explosion. They didn't even try to run. Sasuke and Sakura just stood there in shock while Naruto was blissfully unaware as the light raced towards them.

Moments before the inferno consumed them, time slowed to a stop, and an ancient man with wild silver hair materialized plucked the three ninja from the explosion. No one noticed when time was released from its chokehold, because everything within the blast zone was obliterated, as if it had never existed.

* * *

Naruto's head hurt. Scratch that, it felt like Sakura had pounded his brains out and Sasuke had used Amaterasu on them for good measure. Kami, it _really_ hurt.

_'Owwww… What? What happened?'_ Naruto swore under his breath as he tried to rid himself of the throbbing pain in his head. His memories were fuzzy at best, but he did realize one thing.

_'Sakura! Sasuke!' _Naruto tried to make his voice work, but his body was utterly exhausted. Naruto forced his eyes open and saw only white. Then he blinked and the world revealed itself to him.

Sakura and Sasuke were sitting with their backs facing him, engaged in a rather heated discussion. Every so often, Sasuke would grunt and Sakura would look at him with a vein throbbing in her forehead. Naruto couldn't tell what the two of them were talking about; his ears weren't in the best shape yet.

Naruto groaned and both of their heads snapped towards him.

"Naruto!" they cried.

Sakura immediately whipped out her hands and started to examine Naruto.

"Baka! What the hell were you thinking? Why would you try to destroy the body of the _Juubi_?"

Naruto cringed under Sakura's onslaught. She may have been known as the 'Goddess of Medicine' but she could be downright scary. He couldn't even count the number of times that she punched him through walls for his stupidity.

Mumbling about his lousy insurance, Naruto pushed himself up with his elbows and examined his surroundings. And saw nothing. At all.

Sure, Sasuke and Sakura were there, but that was it. Naruto couldn't even see the _ground_. He knew it was supposed to be there, because he could feel it under him, but all he saw was white. If wherever they were _was_ a room, Naruto couldn't tell, because there was absolutely no variation in the snow-white surroundings. It kind of reminded him of the hidden room where he trained in his _Chakra-mode_ with Bee-oji.

'_Wait', _Naruto thought with a horrible sinking feeling in his stomach._ 'Were they _dead_?'_ Dear Kami, Sakura was going to kill him, and then Sasuke would use his body for target practice in revenge!

The blond moved and froze in pain immediately after his muscles seized up. The pain was far greater than anything he had ever experienced. Not even what Madara did to him during their battle could compare. It was like he was being grinded, burned, and frozen all at the same time. He was on the verge of losing his ability to think.

Fortunately for him, Sakura noticed his predicament. She quickly started pumping chakra back into his body, ignoring his weak protests that he was fine. As the pain slowly filtered out of his mind, Naruto realized something. He didn't remember destroying the Juubi.

'_Oh crap.'_ He thought. _'I missed something huge. That was the point of the entire war!'_

He knew that he _defeated_ the Juubi, but his mind was drawing a complete blank afterwards.

Grimacing, he looked at Sakura and Sasuke in turn. Sasuke looked fine, his Susanoo having protected him for the majority of the battle. If anything, his onyx-eyed looked exhausted from constant use.

Sakura was a different story altogether. She looked as tired as Naruto felt, which wasn't surprising, considering she was the Medical Unit's core after Tsunade-baachan had passed.

Her pink hair was in complete disarray as she focused on Naruto, ignoring the drain in her own chakra reserve. Just how long had he been unconscious?

Naruto painfully cleared his throat, capturing the attention of his two teammates.

"What happened? Where are we?" While he didn't see the Juubi's body destroyed for himself, his friends had told him and he trusted them implicitly.

Sasuke pinned the other male with his famous Uchiha-brooding-stare.

"Well, you've been out for the last two days. To be honest, Sakura and I have no idea where we are," he replied easily.

Naruto blinked, looking remarkably like one of his toads. How someone could manage to look so stupid, Sasuke hoped he would never have to find out. The Uchiha had a feeling that the knowledge would forever scar him... Well, even _more_ than he was already.

"... What?" Naruto voiced intelligently.

Sasuke sighed. If he_ himself_ didn't know what was going on, he didn't know how he was going to explain the situation to Naruto. Wait! There _was_ one way…

Naruto had become the unofficial leader of the Shinobi Alliance in the last few weeks of the war. During that time, he became accustomed to processing massive amounts of information, and planning accordingly, obviously with the help of that Nara. If the dobe could do _that_, then he might be able to understand after all.

"All right. Status report." Sasuke began, causing Naruto's eyes widened momentarily. The blond certainly hadn't expected _Sasuke_ of all people to submit to him as the leader. He briefly checked again to make sure he could still feel pain. Okay, so he _wasn't_ dead. Man, this was weird!

"After you defeated the Juubi, you passed out," Sasuke continued, "and Sakura started to heal you. At the time, your body was suffering damage to nearly all of your organs."

The ebony-eyed Uchiha looked to Sakura, as if questioning if he was missing anything. When she nodded in approval, Sasuke turned back to Naruto and continued.

"Sakura managed to save you in time with her Mitotic Cell Revitalization technique."

Naruto sharply drew in his breath. He must have been in a horrible condition if she though that he needed _that_ technique.

"You were unconscious for about two minutes, but then something… _happened_."

Naruto frowned. He didn't remember anything after he passed out. He noticed Sasuke pausing, waiting for him to pay attention again. Naruto nodded and Sasuke continued with his report.

"You entered Sennin Mode. While unconscious."

'_WHAT?!'_ That was impossible. Even if he did manage to somehow gather nature energy while unconscious, which he still couldn't comprehend, there was no way to control it without his conscious mind actively regulating its flow within his body.

In other words, if he gathered nature energy while he was asleep, there would be nothing to prevent him from turning into a toad.

"That's not all, dobe," Sasuke continued in a dead serious I'm-not-kidding-at-all tone.

Naruto tried to ignore his heart racing in dreadful anticipation. What could be worse than Sennin Mode when unconscious?

"You destroyed the Juubi's body with a simultaneous long-ranged attack of three Futon: Rasen Shruikens. With my Sharingan, I was able to see that the attacks built upon one another until the wind chakra exploded with sheer power. The Juubi was torn apart."

Naruto had come to a conclusion. _'Yep. We're all dead. I just killed my best friends.'_

"Afterwards, Sakura and I woke up after an undetermined period of time and found ourselves with you in this," he glanced around "place."

Turning his ebony gaze back to Naruto, he confirmed what Naruto had suspected. "My Sharingan can't pierce it. Nothing I do can so much as scratch the surroundings."

Naruto looked to Sakura expectantly. "Well?"

"What?" she snapped, more than annoyed. "My super-strength is useless against the floor. I almost broke my hand just by trying to test it!"

Naruto had more or less expected that. If Sasuke's Mangekyō Sharingan was powerless, he doubted that anything could damage to… wherever they were.

"For now, we should rest and recuperate. We don't know where we are or who we might face." Sasuke and Sakura nodded at this. There wasn't much else that they _could_ do.

With no immediate danger, Naruto laid his head down and went back to sleep with Sasuke and Sakura quickly following suit.

* * *

***_One Week Later_***

**"Naruto."** Naruto groaned and rolled over.

**"Naruto!"** Kurama called more forcefully. Naruto stubbornly refused to wake up. Kurama was reaching the ends of his patience.

**"NARUTO! WAKE UP YOU GODDAMN BRAT!"** Naruto bolted upright, only to fall down hard on his butt as he tried to stand.

Kurama chuckled a bit in Naruto's mindscape. **"Serve's you right, you brat! I've been trying to wake you up for the past three hours!"**

Naruto grumbled something about a ramen-filled dream, and then pushed himself off of the water-filled ground in his mindscape.

"Kurama?" he all but groaned. After nearly a week in the white 'dimension' as Sasuke had taken to calling it, he was still recovering from the after-effects of his battle. Fortunately, Sakura had a sealing scroll filled with two-months worth of food and water, as they still couldn't find a way out.

"So you finally woke up. Are you fully recovered?"

**"Yes, but enough of that. What I'm about to tell you is of vital importance."**

The Uzumaki perked up. It wasn't often that Kurama was this serious, and it was sheer stupidity to ignore him when he was.

"Well? What is it?" he prompted.

**"Patience…" **Kurama growled. "**But back to the matter at hand. We are not in the elemental nations anymore."**

Naruto snorted. "Tell me something I _don't_ know!" They were probably in a prison of some kind, Gods knew where. One thing was for certain though, this place was _impossible_ to break out of! No matter what they did, no matter how hard they hit, no matter how _long_ they hit, the floor just _wouldn't crack!_

** "Will you shut up and let me finish?" **Kurama demanded in an annoyed tone. Naruto nodded in obedience.

**"As I was saying, we aren't in the elemental nations anymore. We aren't even in our **_**timeline**_** anymore."**

"_What?!_" the blond exclaimed. Naruto was understandably confused by this revelation. How was it possible to be _outside_ of time itself?

Kurama noticed the obvious disbelief and confusion screaming in his jinchuuriki's eyes. **"We are in the personal training grounds of the **_**Rikudō Sennin**_**, the Sage of Six Paths."**

The boy's eyes bulged in utter shock. Of all the possible scenarios that Team Seven had brainstormed as to the origins of their strange prison, this possibility hadn't even been considered. But if it was true… No, it couldn't be true! The Sage of Six Paths died over two thousand years ago! He was still human, and there was no way that a human, even one with the Rinnegan could live for that long.

**"Naruto?"** Kurama asked in slight concern. **"The Sage himself might not be here, but we are still in **_**his **_**domain. Tread carefully, Naruto…"** And with that, the Kyuubi shut his massive red eyes and laid down to rest.

**Author's Note****: Yes, I know it was _way_ too easy for Naruto to destroy the Juubi with a mere three Rasenshruikens - especially given how freaking overpowered it was shown to be in the latest of the Manga - but I'm banking on the fact that Naruto was essentially attacking the Gedo Maze statue because the tailed-beasts had all escaped, thus depriving the Juubi of its chakra.**


	3. Chapter 2: Ancestor

**Disclaimer: Still don't own Naruto, but I'm working on that.**

**Author's Note: So a week has passed in the white room. The Kyuubi has _finally_ come into contact with Naruto. In case you missed it, Sakura has a sealing scroll packed with two-months worth of rations and water that she carried around during the war, so no starving... Also, there will be NO pairings in my story among Team Seven. Why? Because I suck at writing that stuff, and I don't want to. Not only that, but I just don't see a way to preserve the dynamics of the team if I just randomly pair them off with each other... So for now, let's just stick with intense scenes and _attempts_ at overall epicness. PLEASE REVIEW!**

The Clan Wars

Chapter 2: The Ancestor

Naruto bolted upright breathing very hard, mildly surprising Sasuke who had been on watch while Sakura and Naruto slept. In the week of their imprisonment, there hadn't been _anything_ to watch out for, but there was no way in hell that three of the strongest ninja in the world would die because they were too lazy to put up a watch.

"Nightmares, Dobe?" Sasuke asked knowingly. He had had his share of nightmares involving his part in Itachi's death. Unfortunately, as good of a medic as his pink-haired friend was, Sakura Haruno was no psychologist and couldn't help with his subconscious mind.

Sasuke frowned in concern when he noticed just how pale Naruto had become. It was almost like he had just faced Madara and the Juubi all over again.

"All right, dobe. Spit it out." Naruto glanced up at Sasuke and regained a bit of his color. He forcibly slowed down his breathing until he was no longer in danger of hyperventilation, then he turned and started to shake Sakura awake.

Sasuke tried to intervene. "Naruto just let her sleep. What's so important that you have to wake her up?"

Naruto shot Sasuke a haunted look that chilled him to the bone. Whatever Naruto knew, it appeared to be important beyond measure. Not only that, but it seemed that Naruto was… scared. Now Sasuke was in a similarly panicked mood, although he had no idea why.

Naruto resumed shaking Sakura until he unleashed the sleeping monster. He barely managed to dodge the chakra-powered fist that she shot at his head. Jumping backwards a good three yards, he watched from the decidedly safe distance as Sakura stumbled to her feet, shooting him the evil eye.

"Baka!" she grumbled, rubbing her eyes sleepily. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

Naruto and Sasuke both shot each other looks of incredulity.

"No," they deadpanned together.

"Oh," Sakura started in mild embarrassment as a blush crept across her face. "I guess I just forgot."

"How could _anyone_ forget being stuck in _this_?" Sasuke demanded as he gestured around them to the now utterly boring whiteness that engulfed them on all sides.

Sakura bristled a bit at the barb. She was still waking up, and as a general rule, she never started reigning in her emotions until at least half-an-hour after waking up.

Before she could utter her well-devised retort, Naruto interrupted from his position of safety.

"Guys, now _really_ isn't the time to fight."

Sakura eyed Naruto critically. He looked fine overall, certainly not tired. But his expression… It looked like death had just warmed him over. Her earlier hostility evaporated, replaced with a sense of curiosity and apprehension.

Sakura met Sasuke's equally baffled gaze and nodded. They both sat next to each other, cross-legged in front of Naruto. Naruto glanced at the ground beneath their feet.

This world didn't even have shadows, so it always looked like they were walking over nothing. He didn't put it past the abilities of someone as revered as the Rikudō Sennin, the Sage of Six Paths to be able to create such a place. He had created Kurama after all.

Glancing at the two of them in turn, Naruto began, "Kurama just woke up."

Sasuke and Sakura suddenly took great interest in the conversation.

"He knows what this place is." Naruto paused in thought, not quite sure how to phrase his next few words. He knew he couldn't just blurt it out like Kurama had done to him.

"Well, Naruto?" Sakura intoned.

Naruto though carefully for a moment, then sighed in defeat. There really was no way to sugarcoat it.

"We are trapped in the personal training grounds of the Sage of Six Paths."

Their reactions were much as he expected. Sasuke's onyx eyes bulged in shock as he glanced wildly around them, trying to comprehend what Naruto was saying. They were _trapped_ in the personal domain of the _God of Shinobi_. He must have been _really_ pissed off with the way one of his few descendents, the last Uchiha, had acted.

Sakura was far more agitated than Sasuke, nervously trying to remember _anything_ that might have caused this. If this was the Sage's personal domain, there was a looming possibility that only _he_ could release them. Sakura didn't like her chances of that happening, especially since the sage had been dead for almost two thousand years.

"Guys?" Naruto asked, with concern deep in his voice. His teammate's heads snapped back up towards him. They looked as frightened and confused as he felt. Naruto honestly had no idea how they were going to get out of this.

"Dobe. How does the fox know this?"

"Kurama and the rest of the tailed beasts were created by the sage. This might even be the place where he split up the Juubi's chakra and gave them form."

Sasuke looked troubled by this new information. He knew that the sage wasn't anywhere close to evil. He was more benevolent than the Sandaime had been! But Sasuke knew that he would never stand a chance against the sage. He feared his power, and his judgment.

"You still haven't answered my question," he pointed out.

"Kurama recognized this dimension as the sage's personal training grounds," Naruto dutifully replied.

Sasuke paled noticeably. His mind wandered back to the reasons why he didn't want to face his distant ancestor.

***_Flashback_***

_Sasuke had just killed Orochimaru. That old snake had honestly thought that he would take _his_ body for his own. As if he could ever defeat an Uchiha to begin with! No one could beat an Uchiha except for another Uchiha!_

_But Naruto… That dobe was really getting on his nerves. No matter how far he ran, Naruto always found him. He actually thought that he could save him! From what? Himself? From the pure darkness that dwelled within his heart, the very source of his power? No one would ever take away his power away from him. Not Orochimaru, not Naruto, NO ONE!_

_His one purpose in life was to kill Itachi and reclaim the bloodstained honor of the Uchiha. Anyone who got in the way of that would be erased, especially Naruto…_

***_Flashback End_***

Sasuke started guiltily. He was such an ass back then. He had actually been willing to murder Naruto, one of the few people besides Itachi and Sakura who genuinely cared for him. For what, trying to save him from a path of hatred and destruction?

His final meeting with Itachi had shown him the light, but by then, it had almost been too late. Naruto, however, didn't see it that way and welcomed Sasuke back into Konohagakure with open arms approximately five minutes before the Juubi attacked.

Sasuke had a terrifying suspicion that the Sage was nowhere near as forgiving as Naruto was.

Sakura on the other hand was slightly more hopeful. _'The sage _has_ to be alive.'_ she concluded. _'This is his domain. If we can't get out without him allowing us, then there's no way that we could have _accidentally_ come here. He _must_ have been involved.'_

As Sakura and the rest of Team Seven became absorbed in their own personal musings, none of them noticed the man materialize behind Naruto.

He was a large, muscular man with a frame of roughly six feet with wild, spiky silver hair that hung down a few inches below his shoulders. Two tuffs of hair stuck up on either side of his head like horns, just like Naruto's whenever he and Kurama bonded their chakra. It was obvious now that the horns were actually mark of power, tracing back to the first of the shinobi order.

He wore a flowing white robe, on the back of which was a stylized Rinnegan over nine magatamas. In his right hand, he wielded a monk's staff with a circular hole at the head encircled with six coppery rings. Despite the staff being devoid of any edge, it looked deadlier than one of Kurama's claws, each little copper ring thrumming with a strange and foreign energy.

The Rikudō Sennin was getting bored of watching the three teenagers think. His sky-blue eyes narrowed slightly as he lifted his staff and brought it down with a thud, causing spider-cracks to form along the floor. He chuckled merrily to himself at the results.

The blonde boy, Naruto, jumped back, placing himself defensively between the sage and his friends. The pink haired girl (he honestly had no idea where or when such a mutation had occurred) stepped up behind Naruto on his left flank and started channeling chakra to her fist.

The other boy, Sasuke, the one who had nearly been consumed by his own darkness, drew his ninjatō and stepped forward to cover Naruto's right flank. The sage didn't miss the apprehensive look that Sasuke shot towards the cracks he had made on the seemingly impenetrable ground. The sage sighed to himself. They wouldn't be able to get anywhere if he couldn't talk to them out of their fear of him.

With a wave of his hand, the cracks disappeared and the ground returned to its previous state of unblemished white.

"Welcome, Naruto-kun, Sasuke-kun, Sakura-chan." he said, addressing the three of them in turn.

"I assume that you all know who I am." For their confirmation, he manifested his Rinnegan over his pale-blue eyes.

Sasuke and Sakura slowly dropped their combat stances and stared in wonder at the purple eyes. Sakura had seen them once before, when Nagato and his six paths of pain had attacked the village, but these eyes still mesmerized her with their beautiful if deadly ripple-like pattern.

Having never seen the Rinnegan before, Sasuke was completely fascinated. Here was a dōjutsu that surpassed his own, the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan. Even without his Sharingan active — which he refrained from doing out of fear that the man might view it as a challenge — there was no mistaking the raw power of those eyes.

Naruto, however, didn't back down. With his fists raised in a taijutsu stance, Naruto braced himself for battle. Kurama had told him to be careful, but went back to sleep before Naruto could ask him what he meant. Now with the original God of Shinobi himself standing before them, Naruto wasn't going to take any chances.

"Yes, we know who you are, _Rikudō Sennin-san_" Naruto replied cautiously. "But what do you want with us?" Kurama hadn't said much, but from what Naruto could deduce, this man was powerful enough to destroy the entire world if he chose to, even without the Juubi's help. He was the man who created the moon on his deathbed.

The Rikudō Sennin merely grinned at them. It was… unsettling… to have such a legendary and powerful man gaze at them in such a familiar fashion. The man took a step forward and Sasuke glanced nervously at his muscular frame. It looked like not even Maito-Gai could beat him in taijutsu.

The man stopped about a yard in front of them, his silver hair playing across his eyes in an unfelt breeze.

"There is no need to fear children, we are not enemies." the sage assured them as he attempted to gain some semblance of trust from them.

Naruto, in his usual, bold, knuckle-headed stupidity voiced his defiance,

"Oh yeah? In your _infinite wisdom_ you kept us here for _a week. A WEEK! OF NO RAMEN!_" he exclaimed furiously. He sorely missed his ramen. Sakura had only sealed food pills and rations within her scroll. What he wouldn't give for a bowl of Itchiraku's…

Sakura wanted to kill Naruto, but was afraid to do it with the sage right in front of them. Sasuke, on the other hand, had finally steeled his jumpy nerves.

"Naruto" he warned with a growl. When Naruto turned around, he said, "Shut it. Your big mouth is going to get us killed."

The ancient Sennin frowned. Didn't he just assure them that they weren't enemies? Then he had an idea. There _was_ one relatively simple way to get the teens to trust him without having to resort to mind-control.

His Rinnegan flared as he channeled a small portion of his chakra into his eyes. For a moment, he delved deep into Naruto's subconscious.

***_Inside Naruto's Subconscious_***

The Sennin walked up to the new Six-Paths Cage that Naruto had built for the Kyuubi. He hadn't seen this technique since _he_ made it to seal the Juubi in his own body, making him the world's first jinchuuriki. The fact that Naruto had replicated a seal of that power and complexity out of sheer _instinct_ was nothing short of astounding. But admiration of the cage wasn't the reason that he was there.

He approached the cage, glancing around at the sewer-like mind. _'The mind reflects the mental state of the owner. Just how badly was this poor child treated throughout his life?'_

Shaking his head in dismay, the founder of ninjutsu approached the cage's tenant. Inside was a creature whom he had created and who he thought of as his own son, the nine-tailed fox Kurama.

Slipping through the bars, the ancient man crept up to the fox's sleeping form silently, in spite of having to walk through water. He paused and frowned. Hadn't Kurama been bigger than this? He could have sworn that his creation was at least twice as big the last time they saw each other.

It was utterly impossibly for Kurama to have shrunk in his old age for a very simple reason. The tailed-beasts never aged. They were huge entities of pure chakra, which in effect, make them virtually immortal.

The elderly Sennin stopped in front of the fox's gargantuan nose and grinned wickedly, looking remarkably like Naruto during one of his pranks. He stuck his staff up Kurama's nose and started to wiggle it around. It only took a few seconds for the sage to receive his desired results.

Kurama rose howling out of his slumber**—**a deafening noise. The sage just smirked mischievously. "Yo! Kurama!" Kurama froze dead in his tracks. This… This was a voice he hadn't heard in well over two thousand years. Could it be true? No, it couldn't be! He looked down hesitantly, and saw the one man he respected above all others smiling cheerfully at his monstrous form. His father had returned from the dead.


	4. Chapter 3: Legacy

**Disclaimer: No, I don't own Naruto. Not yet…**

**Authors Note****: Guys, I'm really new at writing stories as a whole, and I honestly don't know what I'm doing. I would really appreciate any reviews, positive and negative. Negative especially. I promise to actually take your thoughts into consideration with my writing style. In other words, please, please review! BTW, Lonely Athena will be posting a version of The Clan Wars translated into Spanish for all Latin readers with my permission. And, team 7 _will_ eventually get to the actual clan wars, it's just gonna take a few more chapters. For now, just enjoy the Rikudō Sennin.**

The Clan Wars

Chapter 3: The Legacy

Kurama stared down in utter disbelief at the living legend himself. There was simply no way. There couldn't be! His father would have _told_ him if he survived.

As if sensing Kurama's inner turmoil, which he probably could, the old sage sighed. Then he started to flare his chakra in a series of rapid signals, a pattern that he used for his children, the bijuu, to recognize him.

The fox's eyes widened. There was absolutely no doubt now. Only his creator knew that particular set of chakra flares. But more than that, only his creator had this particular chakra. This _massive_ chakra, the size of which dwarfed even his own.

The Rikudō Sennin smiled warmly as Kurama lowered himself onto his belly in reverence. It had truly been far too long.

**"Master"** Kurama choked out, his voice breaking with emotion.

"None of that, Kurama" the sage chided fondly. "I may be your creator, but I am also your father, and you will treat me as such."

Kurama nodded obediently. **"Of course father"**

The two immensely powerful beings gazed at each other for a moment, each merely drinking the other's presence in. They had been like a true family before the Sennin had been torn from them, due to his mortality. Kurama truly missed these ripple-like eyes.

His sons, the founders of the Uchiha and Senju clans, had lived on, but none of them had ever been the same as the old man himself. They were continuously at war with each other, killing thousands of innocent people in their crossfire, something that their mutual ancestor would have never allowed. Occasionally, if one of the clans were getting desperate enough, they would involve Kurama or one of his fellow bijuu in their petty squabbles.

Kurama groaned to himself. After the sage's death, he had hoped that his two sons would stick together, that the younger child might be able to persuade his elder brother to fight alongside him. They both had obviously misinterpreted the Sennin's last words.

***_Flashback_***

_As the sage lay dying on the ground with his two sons before him, he decided to test them. He asked them, 'What is the path to true, lasting peace for this world?'_

_His sons' responses had echoed in legends ever since. The founder of the Uchiha clan, the child with his Rinnegan eyes had responded that power was necessary for true peace. The founder of the Senju clan, his younger child who had inherited his body had replied that love and understanding was necessary for the true and lasting peace that the sage so desired._

_They both were wrong of course. Only following a philosophy of love, or on the other hand, only abiding by an ideology of power would have disastrous consequences for the world. Neither of his children truly deserved to take up the mantle, but he had to name an heir soon. His demise was rapidly approaching._

_He thought for a moment and decided to name his eldest son as the one who would bear his mantle as the God of Shinobi, protector of the world. Just as he was about to voice his desire, he lost himself in a vision._

_It wasn't often that these visions occurred, but the Rinnegan was a gift of the gods. Every so often, they would grace him with one of their prophecies._

_In his vision, he was standing in the middle of a battlefield, the ground littered with bodies. He did not know where he was, but somehow the very earth seemed older... sadder. It was more carnage than when he had faced the Juubi! He didn't see a single living person anywhere, just mountains of blood and gore. Behind him, a red sun announced a bloody new dawn._

_The vision shifted and the Sennin found himself standing at the heart of the roiling conflict. There were thousands of Shinobi with the characters for 'shinobi' carved onto their metallic headbands surrounding him, although none of them noticed him. In truth, he would have been surprised if they_ had,_ because he technically wasn't there. A small part of him was glad that his teachings had spread to so many, even though they all appeared to be putting their life on the line._

_Suddenly, he felt a shift in the emotions on the battlefield. In addition to the usual fear, rage and sorrow that accompanied war, two unique individuals stood out above the rest. A burning determination facing off against a malevolent hatred. The sage glanced over to the locations of the two, and was shocked by what he saw._

_It was his mortal enemy, the Juubi! Almost fully revived. The only pieces of its chakra that it needed were Kurama's and __Gyūki's. For now though, it was partially suppressed by the two men riding on top of it. Narrowing his eyes, he doubled the chakra-flow to his Rinnegan and his vision zoomed in obediently._

_The sight of the two men on top of the Juubi shattered his hopes for the future. They possessed the Rinnegan. Well, one of them, the one with the wilder hair and the samurai-like red armor had the Rinnegan. The other, a man with a horribly scarred face had the Rinnegan in his left eye, and an unknown but powerful-looking __dōjutsu in his right. His elder son's descendents would eventually go on rampage and undo all of his life's work. _

_He was almost consumed with guilt, questioning where he had gone wrong in raising his children when he felt a very familiar chakra surge. Squinting his eyes instinctively as wind blew through him, even though he was ethereal, the Sage noticed a tall figure standing under the Juubi defiantly._

_He gasped in shock as the young man he had noticed, took a woman's hand and let his body explode with golden light. This chakra… it was Kurama's! That blondie was Kurama's new jinchuuriki? And more than that, Kurama had _willingly_ supplied the man with nearly all of his chakra!_

_At that moment, the scarred man on top of the Juubi and Kurama's jinchuuriki spoke together. They both started, _**"**_**This World", **__and then they diverged. His crazed descendent on top of the Juubi screamed, __**"I'LL END IT!" **__while the wild card, the golden boy roared in defiance, __**"I WON'T LET IT END!"**_

_The Rikudō Sennin allowed himself to smile. This future world had an unprecedented challenge to overcome. They had to face the Juubi _and_ the descendents of his elder child. But there was hope… In that golden boy…_

_The Sage's vision blurred momentarily, and then he was lying on the ground with his son's tearful faces bowed over his body. His thoughts wandered back to the golden boy. _

_He hadn't been certain at first, but now that he was back, he was sure of it! That boy was his own descendent through his younger son! The strengths of their bodies and their life forces were far too similar to dismiss as a coincidence. That coupled with the fact that Kurama was fighting alongside the boy banished all doubt from his mind. _

_He coughed weakly, and his two sons looked into his eyes, slightly alarmed._

"_Father!" his youngest cried out, his face streaming with tears. His eldest son was seemingly impassive, but the old sage recognized the telltale signs of grief in his son's clenched jaw and fists._

_He closed his eyes. He hated to do this to his eldest son, but he had no choice. This was the only way._

"_Take me to the body of the Juubi" he whispered. He was so close to death now. He could feel its approach in every painful breath, in every taxing movement._

_Both of his children nodded, and lifted him onto their shoulders. Within moments, they were standing before the Juubi's husk. The sage was reeling from the sudden movement, but he steeled himself. By doing this, he at least hoped to delay the inevitable. He glanced around at their peaceful surroundings and winced. It was a beautiful place, with clear streams cutting through dense forested mountains. But it was a necessary sacrifice. The night sky glittered with a blanket of stars, a stark reminder of divine duty to the world. The gods would never forgive him if he failed._

_Disengaging his right arm from his youngest son, he allowed himself to be fully supported by his eldest. He then drew his closed fist to his forehead and whispered, "Chibaku Tense." Planetary Devastation._

_The ailing man groaned as the last of his gargantuan chakra reserves was consumed in the creation of the unimmaginably dense ball that now hovered in his hand. He could feel his muscles decaying by the second as the technique consumed his body's reserves. A trickle of blood ran down his nose, but he ignored it. He raised his hand and beckoned it to the heavens, and the ball obediently departed. As the ball rose higher and higher, the ground began to shake. His sons looked on in utter amazement._

_First the trees and smaller rocks, then the boulders and mountain peaks were ripped asunder from the earth as they followed the black ball into the sky. One after another, they flew to meet the growing mass in the sky. The animals tried to escape, but they were pulled squealing from their lairs without mercy, only to be crushed in the floating sphere of rock. Eventually, even the monstrous one-eyed body of the Juubi began to tremble. But it was still not enough._

_The floating mass in the sky was gigantic by now. Even after several minutes, huge chunks of the land still flew up to meet the ever-growing planet. But the Juubi's soulless husk wouldn't leave the ground. The sage sighed in defeat. He had been hoping not to have to do this, but in was necessary for the fate of the world. For the future generations._

_With a last-ditch effort, The Rikudō Sennin raised his hand toward the white monstrosity and whispered, "Shinra Tensei, Divine Judgment" and the Juubi shot from the ground and slammed into the new planet, which by now was at least fifteen times bigger than it. The debris created in the blast quickly covered the Juubi's body, forcing it to vanish from sight._

_Now gasping for breath, the Sennin gave one final push and hurled his new planet into the heavens. He fell to his knees, with his vision already dimming and his lungs beginning to collapse. His heartbeat was erratic, struggling more and more with each second. His two sons were at his side in an instant. The sage grimaced. It was now or never. This way at least, he would be able to meet his chosen successor, the golden boy, when the time came._

"_My successor…" he started, interrupted by his racking coughs, causing his chest to seize up in pain. The sage ignored it and rasped, "My successor shall be you, my youngest son!" And with that, the most powerful man alive passed with a smile on his lips._

_His eldest son, utterly betrayed, backed away from his father's body in shock. It was as if the man hadn't _trusted_ him. His younger brother was kneeling by their father's body in confusion and grief, not even able to comprehend the magnitude of what had just occurred. _

_The elder of the two slowly let the rage and grief build up inside of him until he snapped, and destiny followed its course._

***_Flashback End_***

The silver-haired man looked into Kurama's red eyes.

"I'm here to claim him as my successor." He stated simply.

To his credit, Kurama didn't look too surprised. His eyes dawned with understanding. **"Naruto?"** he guessed. The sage merely smiled and nodded.

Kurama snorted. **"Well, it figures. All of us bijuu accepted him as **_**the one**_**"** he paused and looked at the sage meaningfully, **"a while ago."**

The old sage blinked. While he knew that Naruto was his successor he certainly hadn't expected the Bijuu to accept him so soon. This 'Naruto' was certainly a wildcard.

"Tell me more", he commanded as he made himself comfortable on Kurama's still gigantic left paw.

**Author's Note: The White Room and exactly what the sage knows about Naruto will be explained in the next chapter.**


	5. Chapter 4: One Last Chance

**Disclaimer: No, I don't own Naruto or any of its characters.**

**Author's Note: Thank you for your patience readers! In this new chapter, the Rikudō Sennin will explain all to Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and Kurama. I finally figured out how to do the time-travel! So anyway, PLEASE REVIEW! Seriously, it really helps to hear other people's thoughts, no matter how scathing.**

**3/11/13: Not an actual update, just fixing minor grammar issues that I missed earlier on.**

The Clan Wars

Chapter 4: One Last Chance

This was getting a bit too hard to swallow. One of his watered-down descendents had though to raise the _Juubi_ because he deemed the world unworthy of its existence.

But the Kyuubi didn't stop there in his long retelling. He recounted every war, every razed village, and every genocide since the sage's passing. He remembered all of the failures of mankind. In the end, the sage learned about all that had transpired after his death, filling in his knowledge from the bits and pieces that he gleaned during his visions.

But what shocked the Rikudō Sennin most of all was the war that _he_ had apparently caused. It all boiled down to his decision: his decision to name an heir. It seemed that after his death, his eldest son had fallen to his feelings of grief and betrayal. War broke out among his descendents almost immediately.

Was it his fault? Did his final decision end up _causing_ war among his own flesh and blood that had lasted for nearly two millennia?

The world-weary sage was torn from his ponderings by Kurama's rumbling.

"**Are you even listening anymore?" **the Kyuubi demanded in an annoyed voice. His father would get lost in thought every so often. It was understandable; his father having mostly no contact with the outside world would obviously have much to think on, but it was still annoying to Kurama as he repeatedly lost his sole audience member.

The sage jumped up slightly in his seat on Kurama's paw. He locked eyes with the fox, light purple ripples clashing against scarlet red. Kurama stiffened slightly. Even if this was his creator, after Madara, he had something of a healthy fear of any and all dōjutsu.

Then the sage closed his eyes with a carefree smile and rubbed the back of his head in an embarrassed manner.

"Sorry Kurama! I must have gotten lost in my thoughts again."

Kurama sighed. He still had much he wanted to discuss with his father, but something told him that now was not the right time. The God of Shinobi had far greater things to worry about than his creations own petty grievances at being left behind. Kurama wasn't abandoning the confrontation where he _would_ get his answers. He was merely postponing it.

The Kyuubi fixed his master with a pointed stare.

**"I've told you everything that I know, but I _will_ have my answers!"** The old man had the decency to look a bit guilty at that.

Kurama continued. **"For now, I will vouch for you among those brats as you desire."**

The sage looked relieved. "Thanks Kurama! I was afraid that I'd have to resort to mind-control to get them to believe that I'm on their side." Then he frowned for a moment.

"Wait… Shouldn't they have already concluded that I _already_ saved their lives by pulling them from that explosion?" He face-palmed with a groan.

"Gah! I'm such an idiot! I should have just led with that! At least one of the three would have trusted me for sure!"

Kurama snorted in amusement at the sage's annoyance. Sometimes the old fart was just like Naruto, although he couldn't imagine Naruto with nearly as much power or wisdom.

**"Wait. Shouldn't you have been more careful with your body? What if Naruto or the Uchiha-brat decide to attack you while you're here. You admitted it yourself, they still don't trust you."**

The old sage smirked confidently. "That won't even be a concern. I am in complete control of the flow of time in my dimension. Outside of Naruto's mindscape, time is flowing so slowly that we may as well be in the moment between moments.

**"Whaaat?"** Kurama shook his head. There were times, such as now, where he believed that he would never understand the old man.

Then the Sennin rounded on Kurama and smacked him lightly on the nose with his staff. Kurama let out a startled yelp. It didn't hurt too much, but it still stung.

"That doesn't mean that you're not coming with me though!" Kurama blinked in surprise as the sage snapped his fingers and the door to the six-paths cage swung open.

"It's time that I told you all what has truly transpired." With a wave of his hand, the sage and Kurama vanished from Naruto's water-filled mindscape.

***_In the White Room_***

Naruto blinked. Something was… _different_. One second, he was telling the sage off for his week of no ramen, and the next, the sage's Rinnegan flared slightly and he felt _empty_ inside.

Not hungry, not depressed. Just, alone. For the millionth time in his life, Naruto felt truly alone. But he had no idea why that was the case. All such feelings had been washed away years ago as he befriended more and more people.

After he had met Kurama, although the old fox had tried to rend him from head to toe, Naruto had never felt completely alone, no matter how cut-off he felt from the rest of society.

Wait. That was it! Something had happened to Kurama! Naruto didn't know exactly what had happened, because for some reason he couldn't enter his mindscape. But he felt his connection with the fox growing drastically weaker by the second.

Naruto's head snapped up to the sage, his narrowed blue eyes boring into the old man's purple ripples. There was no way that he _wasn't_ causing this!

Naruto's body tensed, and both Sakura and Sasuke who were flanking his recognized the telltale signs before his charge. Either Naruto would just dash forward or he would use Hiraishin to aid him in the fight. As it was, Sasuke and Sakura desperately didn't want to fight. They were hopelessly outmatched by the Sennin and were utterly clueless as to what had gotten Naruto so worked up.

Sasuke inched forward under the sage's watchful eye and clasped his hand onto Naruto's shoulder. This fight had to be prevented at all costs. Naruto whipped his head around, his furious blue eyes tearing into Sasuke's surprised form.

"Naruto… What happened?"

Naruto took a moment to steady himself before answering.

"That _bastard_ did something to Kurama! I can't feel him anymore!"

Sasuke stopped dead in his tracks, and Sakura gasped in similar shock. This was bad. This was very bad. That fox had carried the war effort along with Naruto. They were like two sides to the same coin. Without him, Naruto would never be the same.

But more pressing than that was now they absolutely no chance against the man who was calmly waiting in front of them.

Naruto turned away from Sasuke and rounded on the sage.

"You bastard! What did you do with Kurama?"

The sage merely sighed, as if he had hoped for a different reaction.

"Naruto-kun, I am not your enemy. Kurama there," the sage gestured behind Team Seven, "is just outside of you for the conversation."

Team Seven turned around slowly to find a very large demon-fox smirking at them.

**"What's up, Naruto?"**

"KURAMA!" The bijuu winced. That brat Naruto had always been incredibly loud. He glanced down to find the young blond in a state of utter shock and panic, repeatedly looking between him and the seal on his naval.

"What? How? Gah! How am I even alive!?"

The Fox's eyes widened. He had forgotten about that blasted Reaper-death seal that the Yondaime had trapped him with. If he and Naruto were ever separated from each other, Naruto would undoubtedly perish and the rest of his own chakra would be sealed inside the Reaper's stomach. If there was one god that he wanted to avoid, that was the one.

Kurama cautiously locked eyes with his father and his fears were dispelled immediately. The old fart was in the middle of a face-palm, watching through his fingers as Naruto ran around in circles. There was obviously no legitimate cause for concern.

In the meantime, Sasuke and Sakura stared at Kurama in complete awe. While they had seen Naruto's tailed-beast mode and even communicated with the fox during the war, this was the first time that either of them had witnessed his true majesty in person. Well, in Sasuke's case, not behind bars.

This was a creature that could tower over the Hokage monument. But more than its size, this bijuu had won the Fourth Shinobi War alongside its jinchuuriki, Naruto Uzumaki.

Then the sage decided he had been patient enough.

"SILENCE!" he roared. The entire plane trembled slightly as his voice echoed throughout the chamber.

Naruto stood shock-still in apprehension while Sakura and Sasuke had both suddenly developed a cold sweat. Kurama just looked mildly impressed. His old man still had fire in him yet.

The sage glared thunderously at them all, nearly causing Sasuke to bolt like a very frightened rabbit. Then he pointed to Naruto.

"You are _not_ cut off from Kurama. I just brought him out so that we could all speak!"

"You!" he continued, now pointing at Sasuke. "Stop shivering! How many times do I need to tell you, I mean you _no_ harm!"

Sasuke was more than embarrassed at being singled out like that, but at the moment, none of the team had really noticed his plight. They were all too focused on the all-powerful man in front of them who was ranting about always being misunderstood.

"I swear! First it took nearly thirty years to get people to believe that chakra even existed, and now my own descendents don't even trust me!" He then glared pointedly at Naruto and Sasuke.

Sasuke was utterly shocked. His descendents: as in more than one? He had always known the legend that the Uchiha were descended from the sage's elder son. But the youngest son's descendents were the Senju! How was his blond partner related to the Senju at all?

Then the sage snapped his fingers and a circular stone table with four chairs materialized in between the sage and Team Seven. Sasuke's eyes widened in shock and awe. This was Banbutsu Sōzō, Creation of all Things, the supposed pinnacle of the Rikudō Sennin's abilities. Apparently, the cost of such a technique had no effect on him.

The Sennin gestured impatiently as he settled into one of his chairs.

"Well? Have a seat. I've waited two thousand years for this meeting and you will _not_ try to test my patience!"

Kurama was bemused as Naruto and his friends hurriedly sat down. So much for his father's 'infinite patience'.

"Well then," the Sennin said with a now tolerant smile, "let's begin."

* * *

To be fair, Naruto had just gone through war. Countless of his closest friends, and even those that he considered his family had been slaughtered before his eyes. That was why he still couldn't grasp what his supposed ancestor was trying to explain to him. His mind was simply too strained.

"_What_ was that?"

The Rikudō Sennin sighed. He had known Naruto would not take the news well. Only a truly depraved person would, and Naruto was anything but.

"The Juubi destroyed your timeline."

An absolute silence reigned as the ancient sage allowed the four individuals in front of him time to digest what he had just said. Kurama looked understandably shocked in his position behind the stone table. He had fought hard to prevent the Juubi's apocalypse.

Sakura looked utterly devastated. Having been smart enough to realize what the sage meant almost immediately, she had to fight her tears as she realized that she would never see her parents again. Sasuke, on the other hand, was completely impassive. It appeared that he did not regret the world's passing as the others did, with the only living people he cared about right next to him. But it was Naruto that worried the God of Shinobi the most.

His blond descendent was completely withdrawn, almost a shell of his former shelf. Meanwhile, Naruto was busy beating himself up.

_'It's all my fault! I though that I defeated the Juubi, I really did! But in the end it wasn't enough. In the end, what I do is never enough. And now, the entire world is gone.'_

"How?" Naruto looked up at Sasuke's question, mercifully broken from his thoughts. It was directed towards the sage, who frowned questioningly in response.

"How does anything, even something as powerful as the Juubi destroy a timeline?"

The sage sighed in resignation.

"After you four defeated the Juubi, I felt a shift in the forces of the Universe. After it lost the battle, the Juubi decided to sacrifice itself and destroy the world."

Naruto's eyes narrowed momentarily in absolute rage as he thought of the beast that had destroyed his world. He forced himself to pay attention to the conversation as the sage continued to explain. Then he snapped.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAVE EVERYONE?!" he screamed, slamming his fists down on the hard surface of the table. He knew that someone as strong as the Sage of Six Paths could have defeated the Juubi. So _why_?

The sage looked into Naruto's burning blue eyes for a moment, allowing himself to absorb the younger man's sorrows. "With most of its power gone, the Juubi sacrificed its own body for its final attack. I had no time to act."

"But its body was destroyed! It shouldn't have had anything to sacrifice!" Sakura protested in a confused voice.

The sage looked her in the eye before turning away, almost in guilt and self-loathing.

"No it wasn't. As soon as I had sensed what the Juubi intended, I possessed Naruto-kun in hopes of destroying the Juubi's body before it could succeed, but I wasn't fast enough."

"Sennin-san," Sasuke interjected, apparently not worried in the least about Naruto's now-cleared possession. "Could you explain how the Juubi was able to sacrifice its body, and thus destroy the world?"

The sage nodded curtly. "You've all faced the Juubi," he began. They all nodded, but none of them knew where he was going with this. Even Kurama didn't seem to know what the ancient man was getting at with such an obvious statement.

"It is a being of immeasurable power, with a limitless chakra. Even after I tore its chakra from its body, the husk still brimmed with its volatile energy. That was one of the reasons that I had it sealed in what you now call the moon."

Everyone but the sage was stunned. Even the _husk_ had power! The sage gave them another moment to collect their thoughts before he went on.

"The Juubi, as a last-ditch effort, converted its entire body into explosive energy. I only had enough time to get you four out of there before the blast tore the world asunder."

"So everyone is dead." They all stopped at Naruto's new tone. It was... _defeated_. Something that no one had ever hoped to hear from Naruto.

"The Juubi destroyed the world and everyone died. Iruka-sensei, Hinata, Konohamaru, Moegi, Udon, Teuchi-san, Ayame-chan, and not just them. The rest of Konoha. The entire _world_. I could list off names for days on end. All of them were destroyed." His voice broke with crushing grief at the end of his tirade, while his teammates looked on in concern.

"Not quite." Every pair of eyes snapped to the Rikudō Sennin, who suddenly wore an expression of fierce determination.

"We can still save the world from the Juubi! But it needs to be the four of you who carry out the task."

Sakura, her eyes now shimmering with hope whispered, "How? What do we need to do?"

The Sennin's Rinnegan probed each of them in turn. Kurama, as always, was ready. Sasuke-kun just seemed prepared and impatient. It was as though he hadn't had enough in the world to mourn its passing. Sakura was desperate to begin. But in Naruto, the sage saw a burning determination to succeed, a will of fire. He allowed himself to smile. There was no way that they would fail.

"I'm going to send you back in time, to what is commonly known as the clan wars. From there, you will all change the future to make sure that the Juubi never escapes. I cannot send you back to your own lives."

The hope that was rising in Sakura's face was crushed again and she unsuccessfully tried to hold back her tears. Sasuke looked like he had expected as much. For Kurama, it didn't matter when he was sent back, so ling as it happened. Naruto, however, just sat at the table with his trademark confused expression.

"I don't get it. Why aren't we allowed to meet ourselves?"

The sage took a moment before replying. "There are certain laws in the universe that are absolute. This law is one of them. No matter the circumstances, individuals must not be allowed to meet themselves in their past or future, or," he looked dangerously at the blonde shinobi in front of him, "time will tear itself apart and all of creation will unravel."

Taking account of the teenager's shocked faces, coupled with Kurama's curious expression he elaborated. "The Clan Wars were where everything began. The rivalry between the Uchiha and the Senju, the rise of Konohagakure, everything. You all will be traveling to the end of the Clan Wars, just after the creation of Konohagakure to try to prevent the apocalypse."

Then to Sakura, more than anyone else, he murmured, "I truly apologize for not being able to return you to your families. But this way... This way, they'll at least have a chance."

Sakura couldn't take it any more. She burst into tears, burying her face in her hands. Sasuke awkwardly put his arm around her shoulders to comfort her, and she clung to it like a lifeline. He held her steady until the last of the wrenching sobs had left her body, then he allowed her to lean him against with his arm still around her, offering solace.

Naruto, on the other hand, never lost the fire that burned in his eyes. Grinning maniacally, he slapped his hand down in the center of the table.

"Let's go wild! We'll definitely save the world, believe it!" Sakura, Sasuke, and even Kurama couldn't help but grin, despite the gravity of the situation. There really was nothing that could keep that boisterous blonde down for too long.

For his part, the sage was immensely satisfied. He hadn't expected everyone's resolve to be renewed so quickly. It seemed that his blonde descendent had the special gift of inspiration, igniting fires in other peoples hearts wherever he walked.

He waited for a moment before clearing his throat. "Before that, you will all train with _me_ for the next eight months before I send you back. I cannot travel with you, as my time has long since passed. After you leave, I will reside within you all, but I will not be able to help you in the same way that I can here. For example."

The Sennin snapped his fingers and a steaming bowl of miso-ramen along with a pair of chopsticks materialized in front of Naruto. The ramen-deprived boy nearly passed out in delight before almost inhaling the bowl.

"In the real world I will be without my powers, so you three shall be trained here under my guidance."

Naruto looked up briefly from his now half-empty bowl. He met eyes with Sasuke and Sakura and they all nodded in agreement. They had a long road ahead of them. Then Naruto went back to slurping his ramen.

**Ah! Done! Anyway, please review. It really would mean a lot to me if you guys shared your thoughts on the story.**

**Alright, recap: The Juubi decided to destroy the world by basically converting his body into pure, destructive energy. The sage sensed this and possessed Naruto to try to stop it by destroying it first, but he was too late. He only had enough time to pull team 7 out of their time stream before the world exploded. Now, he's training them to prepare for their effort to change the timeline as a whole in the Shinobi Clan Wars. If you still have questions, shoot me a review or a PM and I'll do my best to answer in the next update.**


	6. Chapter 5: Eight Months in Hell

**Disclaimer****: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters.**

**Author's Note****: Thanks to all those who reviewed. I will definitely listen to what you guys have to say about the fanfic. Now then, this chapter will cover the 'training' that the Rikudō Sennin and Kurama put Team Seven through. Let me know if any of my ideas seem a bit too far-fetched.**

**Emergency Update, 5:25 pm: My thanks to Imsabbel for pointing out the ridiculousness of one of the new techniques. I realized how that would mess with the rest of the story and changed it as fast as I was able to.**

The Clan Wars

Chapter 5: Eight Months in Hell

Naruto collapsed out of sheer exhaustion for what seemed to be the millionth time that week. The geezer-sage was a slave driver! It had been a grand total of three months since their fateful meeting, and since then, the Rikudō Sennin had done nothing but train Team Seven to the ground.

Naruto risked a quick glance to his left, not wanting to alert the sage to his movement. The Sennin's philosophy seemed to be 'If you can move, you can train'.

Because of the sage's completely uncompromising training regime, Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke had long since perfected the art of remaining absolutely still. For Naruto, it was easier, with his sage-mode training having already forced him to learn. However, Sakura and Sasuke were desperate enough for their sleep to catch up quickly in that regard.

As it was now, Naruto saw Sakura and Sasuke engaged in their respective lessons with some of the Sennin's shadow clones. Once Naruto had shown him how to use the technique, the old man had fallen in love with it as much as Naruto had. In reality, he was beating himself up for not having come up with the technique himself. It certainly would have made dealing with the Juubi a lot easier.

Even under his shadow clone's exclusive attention, Sakura was having a supremely difficult time trying to understand the sage's medical techniques. Normal human cells have a set amount of times that they can divide, limiting their host's lifespan.

However, it seemed that the Rikudō Sennin didn't _have_ that limitation. The sage had been quite amused by Sakura's shocked reaction at his seemingly infinite lifespan at first, but evidently he thought that it would be a good learning opportunity if she figured it out herself. She didn't quite agree with his complete lack of hints.

A few dozen yards behind her, Sasuke was receiving extreme endurance training for his eternal Mangekyō Sharingan. Even though he was only facing off against a shadow clone, Sasuke knew that he would never stand a chance. That was why the clone never attacked him, but only defended against Sasuke's unrelenting barrage of S-ranked techniques.

"AMATERASU!" Sasuke called for the umpteenth time that day. He was getting rather fond of that technique, especially since it no longer made his eyes bleed. Even though his primary elementary affinity was Lightning, the Uchiha blood in him celebrated with having control over such a powerful fire jutsu. Black flames of unholy vengeance sped towards the shadow clone, directed by Sasuke's red-black eyes. Of course, they had no effect.

"Shinra Tensei" the sage intoned calmly. The 'unstoppable' flames that were racing towards him moments ago diverted around him and dispersed harmlessly into the air.

Sasuke let out a ragged gasp and sunk to his knees, even as his Mangekyō Sharingan deactivated. He was utterly spent, but he hoped that the Sennin would be convinced of the fact. More often than not, the slave driver just plucked him off of the ground and forced him to keep going.

"Very good Sasuke-kun. I think that one was aimed at my head!"

Sasuke gritted his teeth in slight annoyance, having long since outgrown his fear of the Rikudō Sennin. Well, he could always dream.

"Your timing is getting much better, as is your accuracy. However, although your stamina has improved, nearly doubling your chakra reserves, you still need to improve," the sage remarked casually.

Sasuke groaned and pulled himself back to his feet; this was going to be a long day.

Meanwhile, Naruto observed discreetly from his position on the floor. Secretly he was impressed with his teammates' improvement over the past three months.

Sakura had made leaps and bounds in her medical ninjutsu mainly due to the sage conjuring countless practice bodies, completely identical to a living human although soulless. But besides that, Sakura was ecstatic that she had finally found someone besides Tsunade and Shizune who would _understand_ her when she discussed new medical techniques. It seemed that the ancient powerhouse had studied the human body for entertainment over the past two millennia. Although the terms that they used for body parts were different, it was easy enough to figure out what the other meant.

Sasuke however, was quickly becoming far more powerful. According to the Sennin, Sasuke had excellent technique and strength, but a comparatively small endurance in using them. Faced against someone like Naruto, who would just keep coming, Sasuke would eventually wear out. But little by little, that was changing. His Susanoo could last much longer under duress and the rest of his Sharingan abilities no longer drained him.

Then Naruto's blood froze as a deep voice whispered menacingly into his ear.

"You didn't think I'd just let you rest while your friends are working so hard, did you?" Naruto turned to face the man, his expression bordering on horror. He'd been caught!

"Now Naruto" the old man continued, obviously relishing in the poor boy's discomfort, "what do you think your punishment should be?"

"A thousand push-ups?" Naruto replied hopefully. Of course, he had every intention of making a thousand clones and just having them do one push-up each. The Sennin seemed to sense this, because he grinned dangerously and the temperature around them seemed to plummet. Sasuke and Sakura stopped what they were doing in favor of watching Naruto get his ass handed to him. The sage was never pleasant when it came to discipline.

"What do you think, Kurama?" The sage asked the bijuu, who was lounging a few yards behind him.

"**Hehe! I think we're both thinking of the same punishment."** The Kyuubi barked gleefully. It was fun to see the brat squirm in his dreadful anticipation.

Naruto's eyes widened in apprehension, as he shot a simmering glare at Kurama for his betrayal.

"Alright, I've got it!" the sage proclaimed loudly, with a fist pumped in the air. For a moment looking at the sage, Naruto was reminded of himself when he had _finally_ mastered the Shadow Clone. The sage's bearing was one of utter triumph. Naruto shuddered inwardly; this couldn't be good.

The old man fixed Naruto in his Rinnegan-enhanced gaze, freezing the blond in place.

"No ramen, for a _week_." Naruto's mind had turned to mush. Even as he tried to imagine the sage's torturous training without the restorative effects of the ramen after each session, his mind had simply refused to accept the possibility and shut itself down before Naruto could go any farther in his horribly detailed scenario. With a groan, he toppled face-first unconscious into the hard white ground.

The Rikudō Sennin prodded Naruto's prone form with his foot. Satisfied that the teenager wouldn't wake for another few hours, he looked up at his other two students.

"Training's complete for today. For now, enjoy your rest. I'll wake all of you up for food in a few hours."

Sasuke and Sakura collapsed in relief. While Sakura's training was mainly jutsu theory, she certainly wasn't excluded from the sparring and was constantly pushing her super-strength to its limit. But Naruto's training truly astonished her.

The Rikudō Sennin was actually teaching Naruto how to use the original version, _his_ version, of sage mode. Needless to say, this ancient version required quite a bit more control over the nature energy than Naruto's toad sage-mode did. But it was far more potent than the toad sage-mode could ever hope to be.

With the original version of sage-mode, Naruto had to channel nearly twice the amount of nature energy though his body as he did with his own diluted version in toad sage-mode. But more than that, Naruto was learning how to accumulate nature energy while moving.

The Sennin had evidently developed it in preparation for his battle with the Juubi. He claimed that sage chakra was practically useless to him if he couldn't acquire it in the heat of battle. Of course, he may have been able to gather a small amount before the battle, but during it there was no way the Juubi would have let him stay still for long enough. So he decided to change his method of intake. Instead of becoming one with nature and allowing the nature energy to seep into him, he allowed himself to become a beacon in the darkness, naturally drawing the sage-chakra to himself even while moving.

***_Flashback_***

_ The Rikudō Sennin had just finished explaining to Team Seven of the situation with their timeline. He made sure that they were aware of their status as anomalies in the time stream. Basically, their new lives would 'start' in whatever time they were placed into. They didn't even have to worry about ensuring their births, because they'd be from a separate timeline anyway._

_ Naruto looked uncharacteristically serious. He truly wasn't sure how to proceed here. A quick glance at his friends revealed similar doubts. But at this point, nothing really mattered. This was the only way forward._

_ The blond locked eyes with his friends and the three nodded to each other. They were in this together, no matter what._

_ Sasuke decided to lead the discussion this time. "We understand the situation Sennin-sama. We're ready for this task."_

_The ancient man smiled benevolently, his cheeks showing off heavily used laugh lines. Evidently, the sage had found a lot of humor in his own time despite the endless wars said to have been waged during his life. "That is good to hear Sasuke-kun. We will commence your training immediately."_

_ And with that, the stone table that they were sitting at disappeared with a poof. The Rikudō Sennin, now standing, was unleashing his god-like chakra. It wasn't killing intent, because even Kurama would have been hard pressed to withstand such a force. But as it was, Team Seven was still pinned to the floor by the sheer amount of chakra permeating the air._

_ "Come at me," the sage demanded, his silver hair whipping around him in response to the chakra storm. "I would test your abilities to their fullest." And with that, the Sennin activated his Rinnegan and chakra erupted around his monk's staff. Training had just begun._

***_Flashback End_***

The Rikudō Sennin smiled at the memory. It had only been three months, yet the teenagers flourished under his watchful eye. Sasuke was particularly adept with that eye of his. It seemed that his eldest son had retained some of his ability with Banbutsu Sōzō and had passed it on to his own children as a latent ability.

The Creation of all Things was evident with Sasuke's ability to completely manifest his Susanoo warrior. The only thing stopping Sasuke from not only summoning the soul of the warrior, but also manifesting a permanent body, was a lack of sheer power. He alone was only one half of the puzzle, the other being Naruto.

What Sasuke lacked in endurance and tenacity, Naruto lacked in precision and control. Together, they made up for each other's deficiencies. They along with Ms. Green-eyes would be unstoppable once he was done with them. Then he turned to Kurama. He needed a good conversation while his punching-bags were on the floor.

* * *

It was three hours before Naruto groaned and started to picked himself up off of the floor. Then he froze mid-action. _'My ramen!'_ Tears started to leak out of his cerulean-blue eyes as he mourned his lost delicacy. "NOOOOOOOOO!" he cried, the scream practically shaking the foundations of the white dimension.

"Shut up Naruto!" he heard Sakura scold.

"Hn..." Sasuke contributed.

Naruto turned around to find Sakura-chan, Sasuke, and the old man all sitting at a table filled with steaming food. Even as Naruto's stomach began to grumble at the delicious aroma, he noticed that Kurama was nowhere to be seen. Whenever that happened, the Kyuubi always returned to his resting place inside of Naruto, claiming that the floor for the six-paths cage was actually a bit comfortable.

The blond teenager stared at the food only a few feet in front of him and he began to drool. He looked pleadingly at the Sennin with puppy-dog eyes.

"Fine" the sage sighed in resignation. "But you still won't get any ramen for the week."

Naruto continued to look at the sage with his soulful gaze. The spiky-haired man crumbled underneath it.

"Alright, dammit! You can have your ramen!" The Sennin snapped his fingers and a steaming bowl of noodles materialized at the empty spot on the table across from the sage and between Sakura and Sasuke.

"Success, dattebayō!" Naruto screamed as he leaped into his spot at the table. Sakura and Sasuke were sporting smirks as the sage glowered at Naruto, who was rapidly depleting the contents of his bowl.

Sasuke had a similar obsession with tomatoes, and a meal never went by where he had at least two dozen. He had always _had_ the obsession with tomatoes, but he had suppressed it over recent years in favor of a training-regime diet. Sakura was quickly turning into a second Anko in regards to her new obsession with dango. Sasuke concluded that dango was Sakura's new stress reliever for the sage's mind-numbing training.

_WHACK!_ Sasuke cringed at the bone-crunching punch to Naruto's head, courtesy of Sakura.

"Baka! Stop eating like an animal! Your ramen isn't going anywhere!"

"But Sakura-chaaaaan," Naruto whined, drawing out the 'chan' suffix pathetically. "It tastes as good as Itchiraku's!"

Naruto paused in his tirade and thought for a moment. "Besides, it's _way_ better than your disgusting food pills," he added thoughtlessly.

Sasuke could only shudder in agreement. It seemed that the Sakura had simply stuffed whatever nutrients and performance enhancers she could find into those God-forsaken clumps without a single regard for taste. He sincerely regretted having ever tried one, absolutely certain that his body was forever tainted with its touch.

It seemed however, that Sakura did not share these sentiments. With a vein throbbing in her forehead, she loomed over Naruto like a goddess of destruction, her pink hair fluttering in response to her sudden release of killing-intent. Naruto shrunk under her fury.

_**BOOM!**_ Naruto shot out from the table as Sakura's chakra-reinforced fist collided into his jaw.

"MY FOOD-PILLS ARE _NOT_ DISGUSTING!" she called out to his disappearing form. This dimension really was huge. They could walk for weeks and never find the end. Even though Naruto had to be flying hundreds of yard away, there was no chance of him even approaching the walls. With that, Sakura returned to snacking on her dango while the sage and Sasuke used their dōjutsu to track Naruto's descent.

They muttered together. "Three, two, one..." They heard a thud and a muffled 'OW!'. Sasuke smirked while the Sennin looked at Sakura with approval.

"That was twice as far as you could manage before we began, you've really been improving!"

Sakura beamed radiantly. "It really helps that the baka is always acting up. He's such a good practice dummy!"

Sasuke and the sage sweat-dropped. Sasuke made a mental note to himself to _never_ tick Sakura off. He was nowhere near as resilient as a certain blonde-haired loudmouth.

* * *

***_Time-Skip: Two Months Later_***

"GAH!" Naruto was blasted flat on his back by the amount of sheer energy he had been summoning.

"Again, Naruto-kun! You're getting close!" Naruto's personal slave-driver called out in encouragement. Naruto gritted his teeth in determination and picked himself up off of the white floor. In the past two months, Naruto had nearly mastered the original sage-mode, or as his new sensei called it, the Six Paths Sage-Mode. He was now adept at controlling the massive quantities of nature energy that the technique required, but he was still struggling with accumulating the sage-chakra at high speeds.

As it was, his appearance in this ancient technique was different from his appearance in toad sage-mode. He kept his golden irises and horizontal pupils as his mark for already mastering one style of sage-mode, the rings unique to senjutsu-chakra were altered. Instead of just orange rings covering his eyelids, Naruto sported a pair of blue cresents upturned under his eyes, accompanied by a narrow blue line starting from the top of his forehead and ending at the base of his chin. But Naruto still retained his orange eyelids, as though his first technique refused to be suppressed completely.

Naruto forced himself into a ready stance and dispersed his senjutsu-chakra. The exercise was to repeatedly replenish his Six Paths Sage-Mode in the middle of a spar. The Sennin smiled invitingly at Naruto from across the training ring he had conjured.

"Whenever you're ready, Naruto-kun." Said blond's million-watt grin seemed to light up the room.

"I'll definitely get it this time, dattebayo!" The Sennin smiled. His heir never seemed to give up. That trait was definitely useful, given the kind of training that Naruto was undertaking. A training that demanded supreme concentration and effort, where faltering would result in death. Now, Naruto needed his indomitable will more than ever before.

Naruto launched himself at the seemingly relaxed old man and set himself off in a barrage of unpredictable punches and kicks, to anyone who didn't have the Rinnegan. The Rikudō Sennin seemed to block blow by blow, as if he knew where each hit was intended to land. He could have won easily, but that was not the purpose of the spar. The Sennin started to press forward, but not too hard. He only wanted to pressure Naruto into action, not completely annihilate him on accident.

Naruto was panting hard. This exercise was... intense. It took quite a lot of concentration to draw sage-chakra while moving, but that was _nothing_ compared to having to fight the Rikudō Sennin. The man was comparable to a god! His speed was so fast that he was untraceable. He was so strong that Naruto suspected he could take them apart at his leisure if he chose. But for the training, the sage had toned himself down to match Naruto's own power. It wouldn't do to kill his student in a training bout.

The Sennin duck under another of Naruto's increasingly clumsy punches and launched his own staggering counter-punch. The young man swayed for a moment as his opponent's open palm struck his chest, defiantly refusing to fall. Then he looked up with golden eyes and grinned with the blue rings already starting to form.

_'It seems that he's finally done it!'_ the sage thought as he made his hasty retreat. _'He seems to be using his opponent's own attacks to force the nature energy into himself. It's as if the chakra is really protecting Naruto...'_ The thought didn't surprise him. It was only natural for fate to support Naruto. He was trying to save the world after all.

**BOOM!** The sage risked a glance behind him as he fled and witnessed Naruto rapidly gaining on him. If they went any faster, they might risk breaking the sound-barrier. Naruto was getting pretty damn close as it was.

"Get back here geezer-sensei! I'm not done with you yet, dattebayo!" Naruto shouted.

The Sennin simply turned around mid-leap and kicked Naruto straight out of the air. Naruto landed hard on the ground, the impact knocking the breath out of his lungs. He rolled for a few feet before he used his arms to summersault back to his feet, immediately falling into a defensive stance.

"Sloppy, Naruto-kun. But for all intents and purposes, you've passed the exercise."

Naruto looked up in surprise, his golden irises taking on a distracting shine.

"Do you mean...?" the teenager asked warily. He wouldn't doubt that the slave-driver would build his hopes up, only to enjoy watching him squirm under _more_ disappointing news.

"Yes, you've mastered the Six Paths Sage-Mode."

A beat.

The Rikudō Sennin couldn't help but smile when his pupil started to jump around and pump his fist in the air.

"I DID IT, DATTEBAYO! WE'RE HAVING RAMEN TONIGHT!"

The sage sighed softly to himself. That boy and ramen. Oh well, no one was perfect. He only hoped that Sakura and Sasuke had similar success in their own respective training. They were both _so close_. If they kept at it, they would make a break-through in another day or two. Well, they had time, but not much. There was so much to prepare for...

**For those who were wondering what I 'changed', Naruto's original Six Paths Sage-Mode looked like "someone took some lipstick and drew glasses on his face". You can see how this would cause problems...**

**Anyway, next chapter will see the conclusion of Sakura's and Sasuke's training and we'll talk about _how_ the trio intend to alter the time stream. So please REVIEW! Are you guys disappointed with the training went? Was I overly sucky with my 'action scene'? (I have a feeling that action scenes are going to be a weakness). PLEASE let me know.**


	7. Chapter 6: Power of the Uchiha

**Disclaimer****: I don't own Naruto or any of its characters**

**Author's Note****: Hey guys! Thanks for all the feedback. I've got the Clan Wars itself figured out (you know, the actual war the entire fanfic is supposed to be about), but I'm still working on an ultimate enemy for Team Seven once they actually time-travel. Now don't panic! That won't matter for another five or six chapters. Anyway, this chapter will be the conclusion of the 'eight months in hell'. BTW, I'm going to stop asking for reviews. I will appreciate those that _do_ share their thoughts, but I'll stop pestering the rest of you.**

**Anyway, I've neglected this for far too long. I'm replying to all of the review that I've received for The Clan Wars. **

**Tellemicus Sundance:** That wasn't my intention, so rest assured. The sage will _not_ be an omnipresent being.

**Crystalzap: **Yes, I know the sage is overpowered, but he _does_ have his own limitations which will be apparent in the next chapter.

**pinkpolkadots71: **I'm glad you think so and I'll do my best to keep updating.

**imsabble: **Thanks for pointing out the... problem with sage-mode. It really helped me out. And don't worry, the sage _will_ eventually teach his philosophy to Team 7, just not now. Maybe in the next chapter.

**VLS: **I'm glad you like the training. I was afraid that there wasn't enough action for most people's tastes. Only a few more chapters before they actually time-travel!

**risen truth ruthless lies: **Team 7 will be going to the Shinobi Clan Wars a year before the founding of Konoha. I'm glad someone besides me is having a headache over the timeline stuff. It's complicated!

**XT3:** I did that for a reason. Naruto is the sage's _heir_, remember? It would backfire for the story if he didn't flourish under the sage a bit more than Sakura and Sasuke.

**Naruto Obito Halliwell Uzumaki:** I'm glad you like it!

**Maghands:** Indeed. Ramen is something that neither I nor Naruto will _ever_ abandon. I'm glad you like the story.

**Lonely Athena:** You deserve a special shout-out for _translating_ the entire prologue into Spanish. You have my sincere gratitude. Thank you.

**NativeBeauty420:** I thought that Sasuke 'scared shitless' was hilarious as well. But then I decided that a running gag would end up with little character development, so I had him _mostly_ outgrow his fear of the sage. Sorry, I'll try to find other running gags for the fanfic. I have some ideas involving the Senju and gambling...

**Kelly2013:** Thank! I plan to see this fanfic through to the end.

**Sayle:** I'm glad I caught your attention and I hope to keep it. I hope this chapter is long enough for you to form a real judgement on the fanfic.

**Sanz0girl: **I'm glad you like it. I hope you keep reading.

**daydreamer1008:** Ah! My first reviewer. Thanks for you encouragement. You actually spurred me to write the next chapter of what was supposed to be a one-shot fanfic.

Now on with the story:

The Clan Wars

Chapter 6: Power of the Uchiha

The fight mesmerized Sakura. It wasn't a normal spar, but more like a clashing of gods. Naruto and Sasuke exchanged blows once more, and then they each leaped backwards and studied each other from a distance.

It had been nearly a month since Naruto had mastered the Six Paths Sage-Mode. For both of their benefits, Naruto and Sasuke had since had daily spars with each other.

The rewards that each shinobi had reaped with the exercises were exponential. Sasuke, although he couldn't keep up with Naruto in terms of endurance, was rapidly building his own stamina. Day after day, Sasuke could last a few minutes longer with his eternal Mangekyō Sharingan before he had to retire.

Naruto on the other hand while far outstripping Sasuke in terms of raw power was drastically increasing his control over the new sage mode. He was slowly reaching the point where he would no longer have to take a few punches just to activate it.

But now, they both burned with overwhelming power. Had Sakura not been training with the Rikudō Sennin herself, she would have long since passed out from overexposure to chakra.

Naruto stalked Sasuke from one side of the conjured arena, his orange rings with their blue highlights already beginning to form.

From her seat in the stands, Sakura had always wondered how Naruto had been able to gather nature energy in the old man's training grounds, but she had always been too busy to ask. It wasn't like a white dimension was 'all natural'. She supposed that the sage-chakra was drawn from the Sennin himself, since the white room was connected to him to begin with; but she never had any proof.

On the other side of the arena, Sasuke smirked lightly.

"You've been getting better Naruto. But do you really think that you and your fancy new sage-mode can go up against my eyes?"

Sakura groaned to herself, and she was sure that she wasn't the only one. She, along with Naruto had been trying to break Sasuke of his arrogance for months. Things like that _did_ tend to get old after all. But it was like the arrogance was a part of Sasuke's character, almost as if without the superiority complex, he wouldn't be _Sasuke_ anymore.

While Naruto and Sakura were underwhelmed at the prospect of dealing with the legendary 'Uchiha Pride', they weren't willing to change their friend to escape it.

Regardless, it was all Sakura could do to not run away from the impeding argument that was sure to follow Sasuke' self-assured remark.

"Hah! Teme, as if I could lose to you so easily!" came Naruto's easy reply.

"**FOCUS YOU BRATS! IF YOU DON'T YOU'LL BE FACING THE **_**EXPLODING**_** END OF MY BIJJU DAMA!"** Kurama rumbled from the sidelines.

Naruto and Sasuke shuddered at the Kyuubi's threat. There was no compromise or hesitation in those words.

In all fairness, Kurama had been stuck watching his father train three _humans_, while he just lazed around for six months. He was just _bored_, and these little bouts between the Uchiha and his jinchuuriki usually ended in interesting ways.

Like the time Sasuke had burned off Naruto's eyebrows with Amaterasu. He put out the flames before they could do permanent damage, but still… Those took a full _week_ to grow back.

Or the time Naruto had 'accidentally' pumped Sasuke full of sage-chakra. If the Rikudō Sennin hadn't been watching and suck the corrupting energy back out, Sasuke-the-ninja may have very well become Sasuke-the-toad-statue. Kurama could have _killed_ to see that, but not all good things come to pass…

The two ninja turned back to their spar with renewed determination, each eager to test how strong they had gotten under the sage's tutelage.

Naruto grinned with his orange-blue rings fully formed, powering a rasengan in each hand. Sasuke simply smirked as his eternal Mangekyō Sharingan blazed to life and formed his ethereal warrior around him, sword of unstoppable black flames in hand.

"SUSANOO!"

Naruto faltered for slightly; he hadn't managed to break through a full-powered Susanoo yet. Whenever he had had to face one (Madara, Itachi, evil-Sasuke), he had always banked on the user running out of chakra, or going blind. Yeah, it was _great_ when his enemies went blind.

But now, there was no way that Naruto could rely on Sasuke simply depleting his chakra reserves to win the fight. The Uchiha had undertaken a ruthless chakra-enhancing training regime for the past six months, and hell if it didn't work.

Now Sasuke could keep up with _him_, the ninja who was said to have a 'limitless chakra reservoir'. It was downright annoying in Naruto's opinion. Never running out of energy was _his_ job, not Sasuke's. But the Teme never lost his superiority complex as he trained. If anything, it seemed to come back stronger than ever, much to the annoyance of Sakura and Naruto.

But now the room, or dimension, practically trembled with the power of the two teens. Not too far away, the Rikudō Sennin smiled as he watched the fight atop Kurama's nose.

'_Power and control. Body and eyes. Yin and yang. Naruto and Sasuke. A _team_. Together, you will erase two millennia of war and terror. You will be the light in the darkness. You are the new children of the prophecy. My prophecy.'_

Of course, the sage never said anything to the teenagers. Their task was monumental as it was, there was no need to heap _more_ responsibility on their already burdened shoulders.

"RASENGAN!" shouted Naruto as he flashed next to Sasuke and plowed his twin energy orbs into the Susanoo warrior. Sasuke just smirked in that infuriating way of his as the violent blue balls of chakra dissipated against the Susanoo's purple armor. It wasn't even scratched.

The battles always began like this. Both boys would start a simple taijutsu spar to warm up, then after twenty or so minutes, things would start to get serious. Naruto would enter his Six Paths Sage-Mode while Sasuke would counter with his Sharingan, and if he were feeling _especially_ competeive, he would wield the Mangekyō.

Today must have been a good day for Sasuke, because instead of simply beginning with his regular three-tomoed Sharingan, he had jumped straight to the next level of his dōjutsu. Naruto was getting quite used to seeing those particular red loops.

Naruto ducked, narrowly avoiding the Susanoo's sword of black flames. His eyes narrowed. Sometimes he suspected that Sasuke was _trying_ to kill him. Naruto lashed out with a punch. His fist never connected with the large purple armor, but the blow did.

In sage mode, everything is enhanced way beyond the ordinary for the user. Sensory skills, physical abilities, chakra potency, and attack range. Handheld ninjutsu like the rasengan could be _thrown_.

But more than that, it was like Naruto had his own invisible ally, one that attacked whatever he punched towards, even if it _was_ twenty feet away. And with far more power than Naruto could normally manage.

The Susanoo staggered, but it didn't crack under Naruto's retaliation. Sasuke would _not_ drop that _infuriating_ smirk.

"Keep dreaming dobe, you'll never break through."

"Never is a long time, teme." Naruto answered in a dead-serious voice.

Sasuke frowned. Was that… _confidence_? Naruto was _confident_ that he could break through what was rightfully considered to be the ultimate defense among all shinobi? There! That evil grin! Sasuke only saw that grin when Naruto pulled a prank; it looked just like a fox eyeing a mouse.

Sasuke slipped into a serious stance. It was absolute idiocy to disregard Naruto when he had that expression on his face. The _last_ time that had happened… Sasuke shuddered. Best not to dig up those dirty secrets.

"Let's take this up a notch!" Naruto exclaimed as he looked expectantly at Kurama.

"**Fine, but only a little!"**

Naruto grinned and the room brightened momentarily. "That's all I need! Thanks, Kurama!"

And Naruto flooded his body with golden chakra, the Kyuubi's energy fueling his ever-demanding sage-mode with its life energy. Naruto inspected his now golden hands with a slightly smug satisfaction.

"It's been a while since I've used this," he remarked casually, causing Kurama to snort.

The Sennin looked on from Kurama's nose in interest. So this was the power that had caught his eye. The only human beside himself that had ever truly bonded with Kurama: Uzumaki Naruto.

Sasuke was frozen. This had never happened before. He had fought a clone Naruto and _demolished_ it. The actual Naruto wasn't too hard to beat either. A toad-sage Naruto posed a _bit_ of a challenge, but not much when he used his Mangekyō Sharingan. Naruto, in his new Six Paths Sage-Mode though, was far more of a challenge, almost always dragging their battles to a draw. But a jinchuuriki Naruto… Sasuke had honest doubts that he could win.

Naruto on his own was powerful enough, but _Naruto and Kurama_. That was a bit too much, even for the last of the Uchiha.

***_Flashback_***

_The Rikudō Sennin smiled at his descendent. The last Uchiha appeared to be marginally frustrated with his training. The exercise that they were working on involved resistance… against the Rinnegan._

"_Shinra Tensei!" the sage intoned, even as Sasuke's Susanoo warrior crumbled under the intense 'Almighty Push'. Sasuke, with his phantom warrior gone, was sent flying. He hit the ground and rolled several yards until he finally popped himself back up, Sharingan blazing in defiance._

_The Sennin sighed. There was so much… anger in those red-black eyes. If they were ever to advance in training Sasuke's dōjutsu, Sasuke needed to abandon his hate to unlock his true potential._

"_Sasuke! That's enough for today."_

_The said Uchiha looked confused. "But we've barely started!" he protested indignantly. "If Naruto and Sakura can keep going, then there's no _way_ that I can't!"_

"_Sasuke!" the sage barked, flaring his chakra a bit for effect. It definitely worked. Sasuke froze instantly, and deactivated his Sharingan in submission. Although the black-haired teenager had begun to lose his fear of the Rinnegan wielder, he still had what he liked to call a 'healthy respect for power'. _

_The old man grinned inwardly. In truth, the personalities of Naruto and Sasuke were _just_ like his own sons'. It was eerie, really, just how much the two pairs had in common with each other despite the millennia separating them._

"_We need to talk… alone." Sasuke looked quite understandably apprehensive._

"_About what?" he questioned cautiously._

"_Your origins." The old sage replied. He had no desire to speak of this to anyone but Sasuke. Despite the fact that Naruto and Sakura were perhaps the only two people that Sasuke trusted, having them here what he was about to tell the young man would… complicate things._

_Sasuke glanced over to where his two friends were sparring. Sakura had gotten undeniably faster, a potentially deadly combination with her super-strength and her knowledge of the human body. However, Naruto was radiating power in his Six Paths Sage-Mode, so much that even he and Sakura who _weren't_ sages could feel the accumulated nature energy. Sakura would be hard-pressed to stay on her feet, much less drag the battle to a draw._

_But they would still be occupied for quite a while. Sasuke turned back to his ancestor and nodded sharply. "I'm ready to listen."_

_The Sennin smiled and closed his eyes in concentration. He heard Sasuke gasp as he formed new walls around them. When he opened his eyes, Sasuke was standing in front of him with his jaw dropped as he glance around wildly at the materialized room. "I'll never get used to this." He muttered as he regained control of his jaw._

_The sage pointed to the floor in front o him. _

"_Sit." He commanded. _

_Sasuke wrinkled his nose. Was he really going to be lectured like some random Academy student? But he sat anyway._

_The sage inspected the teenager gravely. If he had misjudged Sasuke's maturity, this influx of information for the young man could spell disaster. It was an all-or-nothing gamble, but the confidence in his student's black eyes was reassuring._

"_It's time you learned" he began, "of the origins of the Uchiha."_

_Sasuke's spine went rigid and his eyes widened in anticipation. He knew the legends of course. That the Uchiha were the children of the sage's eldest son: the ones who inherited 'the eyes'. But son much was _missing_ from the story. And now he would hear it all from the man himself!_

"_You are descended from my eldest son, bearer of the Samsara eyes, the Rinnegan. But none of his children were ever blessed with the ripple-eyes."_

_Sasuke frowned in mild confusion. _

"_What happened? Surely such power could not be diluted in merely one generation."_

_The sage looked down to where Sasuke was sitting, capturing the teenager's eyes with his own._

"_A failsafe. That's what happened." Sasuke opened his mouth to ask another question, but the sage cut him off._

"_You are aware that it was not my eldest whom I chose as my successor?"_

_Sasuke nodded curtly. Then he blurted out before the sage could say anything, "Why do you never refer to your children by their names?"_

"_Sasuke-kun" the sage chided. "No interrupting. But as for an answer to your question, names have power. It does not bode well to unnecessarily throw them around."_

"_Anyway, my eldest was consumed by my betrayal as I named his younger brother my heir, robbing him of his birthright. His hatred destroyed his reason and corrupted his soul."_

_Sasuke was very still at this revelation. Hatred, betrayal, corruption. Those sounded very familiar. That had been his path after his brother, Itachi, had been forced to murder the entire Uchiha clan. A path of carnage, one where he walked through an ever-growing pile of blood and gore. _

"_The Rinnegan… Do you know how I received these eyes, Sasuke-kun?"_

_Sasuke shook his head reluctantly. There were plenty of rumors. That the ripple-eye was a mutation, or a gift from the gods, but it wasn't like anyone could _prove_ anything._

_The sage looked at the sitting boy seriously, his purple eyes unusually sharp._

"_The Samsara eyes are a gift from the gods themselves," Sasuke's breath caught in his throat, "specifically designed to combat the Juubi."_

"_Why didn't the gods just fight the Juubi themselves? Why trust a mortal?" Sasuke asked. He had long since lost faith in humanity since learning the truth of the Uchiha Massacre. Why would humans do the right thing? Naruto though, was a blinding exception to his burdened gaze on the world. That blonde teammate of his would _always_ do the right thing._

_The Sennin sighed. "There are _rules,_ Sasuke-kun, that even the gods must follow. Their direct interference would have shattered the world, so they had to work against the ten-tailed abomination through an instrument… me."_

_The Uchiha looked at his ancestor with a newfound respect. "You? You are an instrument… of the gods?"_

_The old man nodded seriously. "That I am, but such facts are beside the point. The gods put a failsafe on the Rinnegan, to make sure that it's power would not be misused."_

_Sasuke frowned. "What kind of failsafe?" _

"_One bound by blood, triggered by hatred."_

_At Sasuke's confused glance up to him, the sage continued._

"_When I received the Rinnegan, the gods warned me that if I ever fell into depravity, my descendents after me would never have the benefit of its power. The Samsara eyes only truly obey those with a righteous soul."_

"_But your son…" Sasuke began. He had thought that the sage's eldest had inherited his father's dōjutsu._

"He_ inherited the Rinnegan… but his children did not." Regret was rolling off the sage in waves, making Sasuke increasingly nervous. It would be _very_ bad if his all-powerful sensei were to lose control without warning. The Sennin seemed to notice Sasuke's apprehension and calmed himself down._

"_He… That _fool_ went against everything that I taught him. He threw his family aside like a broken weapon as he strove for power. He started a _war_ when the world had just experienced its first years of true peace in almost two thousand years. And for that, the gods cursed his bloodline."_

_Sasuke was stunned. His blood was… cursed by the gods?_

"_The Rinnegan was warped in his children, a mere shadow of its true power. The hatred they bred amongst themselves dyed the eyes red, and the rings of power all but disappeared save one. Surrounding the ring, the gods placed three tomoes granting the so-called 'power' that my son had desired, but also sealing away the dōjutsu's true potential. It was a cursed power."_

_Sasuke was now visibly shaken. What he had thought of as a noble clan, his own clan, the Uchiha, was merely a disgrace to the line of the Rikudō Sennin. The gods themselves had deemed them unworthy of the power they had once wielded and stripped it away._

_The last Uchiha worked up his courage in the face of what he had just learned. He needed to know._

"_In what way are we a cursed clan? The Sharingan granted my people considerable power in times of war."_

_The Sennin stared at Sasuke, who flinched and looked away, unnerved. _

"_How do you _activate_ the dōjutsu?"_

"_What?"_

"_You heard me. How does an Uchiha gain the Sharingan? You certainly aren't _born_ with it."_

_Sasuke flinched again, his mind wandering back to his defining conversation with the four resurrected Hokage. The Nidaime, Tobirama Senju had explained the biology of the Sharingan 'awakening' well enough._

"_Through tragedy." Sasuke whispered as he looked down. "Sorrow and loss are the keys to unlocking the Sharingan."_

_The sage nodded sadly. "But you're different Sasuke."_

_Sasuke's head shot up. "What?"_

"_You experience the ultimate grief, losing all of your family. Although you walked the path of darkness and destruction, you still turned towards the light."_

_The light. Naruto._

_Sasuke smirked as he thought of his friend. That person was the only reason that he had abandoned his hatred, the reason that he forgave the Hidden Leaf. Konohagakure's own Kyuubi jinchuuriki and future Rokudaime Hokage, Uzumaki Naruto._

_As if reading his mind, the ancient man shook his head._

"_No, Naruto is a part of the solution, but he is not the entire answer."_

"_Then what…?" Sasuke asked, a bit confused. He didn't know what the answer could be, if not Naruto._

"_I speak of the manner in which you gained your Mangekyō Sharingan."_

_Sasuke stiffened. "I don't want to talk about it." He had never forgiven himself for killing his brother, nor had he forgiven his brother for leaving him._

_The Sennin smiled sadly at his descendent. "It is a necessary evil, Sasuke-kun."_

_When Sasuke didn't answer, he continued. To the best of my knowledge, an Uchiha gains the Mangekyō if they slaughter someone close to them, or if they witness the death of someone they love. Family, friends, companions, lovers."_

"_So what's so _special_ about how I got the Mangekyō?" Sasuke snarled. He didn't want to have to face his brother's death over and over again._

"_Your eyes _are_ special, because they were borne out of regret for your actions." Sasuke looked like somebody had stabbed him. 'Eyes borne of regret'. _

_The sorrow was there, but it was different from the usual method of activation. Cold-blooded murder, utter shock and despair, but regret? Sasuke had never paid attention to the uniqueness of his own awakening because he was consumed in his guilt and desire for revenge._

_He looked up at the sage, his black hair slightly covering his black eyes._

"_What does that mean for me?"_

_Then the sage smiled. Really smiled. It was as if Naruto himself was there, beaming at him._

"_It means that you have broken the seal that the gods placed upon you clan's eyes. You have been deemed worthy of the Rinnegan… should you ever gain the power the properly wield it."_

_Sasuke's jaws dropped. _Him_? The man who abandoned his friends for power and revenge? He had been declared worthy of the Rinnegan, the most powerful bloodline limit in the world?_

"_Don't get too excited Sasuke! You don't have nearly enough power to wield the Samsara eyes yet."_

_Sasuke looked disappointed. "Hn. I'll bet that _Naruto_ could handle it with that fancy new sage-mode of his."_

"_Actually, Naruto _could _handle it."_

_Sasuke's eyes shot up as he glared at the Sennin._

"_Relax! He couldn't anyway, even if he is capable of withstanding the power. He didn't inherit the eyes."_

_Sasuke dropped his gaze, then after a moment, he stood and humbly bowed before his sensei._

"_Please teach me how to unlock the Rinnegan, Sennin-sama."_

_The sage raised a silver eyebrow. "Sennin-sama?"_

"_It's as good as you'll ever get from me."_

_The sage chuckled good-naturedly. "I suppose so. Yes, Sasuke-kun. I agree to teach you the secrets of the Rinnegan. May you use them to carry out my will for the world."_

***_Flashback End_***

Sasuke snapped out of his memory as Naruto made a new rasengan. But this one was different. It was far more compact than a normal rasengan, but more than that, it had that same volatile wind energy leaking out of it as the rasenshruiken. Kurama's golden chakra appeared to be affecting it as well, making the winds more and more volatile: more destructive.

Just like with the other futon jutsu, the air raged around Naruto, swirling to give him a godlike effect as he stood in the center of his personal maelstrom.

Even Sasuke had doubts that his Susanoo could hold its own against Naruto's new improvement on the rasengan. A rasenshruiken was hard enough to weather, but if... _whatever_ that was managed to hit...

Naruto raised his completed jutsu in the center of his personal tempest.

"FUTON: RASENKOHAI!"

Then he flashed in front of Sasuke. That Hiraishin jutsu was getting rather annoying for the Uchiha. It was one of the few that rendered his eyes useless. More importantly, he couldn't avoid Naruto's assault.

"Take this, teme!" Naruto shouted as he slammed his creation into the Susanoo's stomach.

Crack appeared, materialized really, originating where Naruto's new jutsu ground mercilessly at the armor.

Sasuke however, smiled and as his defense crumbled, surprising everyone.

"Hn. So it's come to this, has it? Only you could ever push me this far, Naruto."

"Sasuke…" Naruto whispered, at a loss for words.

"Come then, Naruto! Let's do this just like old times! You're not the only one who's developed new techniques!"

Naruto grinned, even as he pressed the explosive power in his right hand down against Sasuke's cracking armor. Instead of millions of individual microscopic attacks, like his futon: rasenshruiken, Naruto's new jutsu focused on tearing the target apart, combined with the sheer unpredictability of wind-natured chakra. That was the rasenkohai, spiraling devastation.

It was a truly damning jutsu which left little hope for recovery, which was why Sakura was beside herself.

"NARUTO!" she roared. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING, USING THAT JUTSU AGAINST A TEAMMATE!?"

For once, both of the boys ignored her and she sputtered in fury.

"Sakura-chan." Sakura looked up to where the sage was seated on Kurama's nose.

"You and I can handle any injuries if things get too out of hand. For now, let's just watch them fight."

The pink-haired medic nodded reluctantly.

"If you say so…" she muttered darkly under her breath.

Naruto decided to end the fight with one move.

"UUUUUOOOOOOOHHHHHHH!" Naruto screamed as had gave his rasenkohai a final shove.

Sasuke's Susanoo shattered and the spinning ball of blue white energy sped toward Sasuke, as it was now devoid of any resistance in its path.

But then, mere inches from Sasuke's chest, it _stopped_. Then it spread out over an invisible barrier around Sasuke and disappeared.

"H-How did you…" Naruto trailed off as his friend looked up at him with eyes that he had only seen in four people. The Rinnegan.

Then Sasuke collapsed from sheer exhaustion.

"Sasuke!" Naruto and Sakura cried out, united in their concern as they both rushed to support him. Naruto dispelled his golden chakra-cloak and purged his body of sage-chakra as he caught the other body.

From atop Kurama, the Rikudō Sennin smiled. _'So he's finally grasped it. Good, now we are but a few steps away from ending the wars that plague the land.'_ Looking up, seemingly at nothing, the sage whispered, "Wait for me, my beloved. It won't be long now."

**STOP! Before you go on some blasted rant about Sasuke having the Rinnegan, read the next chapter. There is a saving grace for all Sasuke haters in the next chapter...**

**BTW: I'm not going to give the Rinnegan to Naruto because he never inherited the eyes in the first place, so he never had the potential to unlock it like Sasuke did...**

**Whew! That took a while! So, in this chapter, the origins of the Uchiha and the Sharingan were explained in depth and one of Naruto's new jutsus was introduced! Please shoot me a review. I certainly appreciate them as they are a **_**great**_** inspiration for the fanfic as a whole. I'll answer any questions you have in a shout out on the next chapter. Until next weekend!**

**Futon: Rasenkohai - Wind Style: Spiraling Devastation**

**Rank: S**

**Properties: Compresses huge amounts of wind-natured chakra into a rasengan-like ball. However, unlike the futon: rasengan, instead of thousands of microscopic attacks, it focuses on tearing its target to shreds, much like a blender. Think of it as millions of swirling blades compressed together, that will shred though anything.**

**Hiraishin no Jutsu: Flying Thunder God Technique**

**Rank: S**

**Properties: Signature jutsu of the Yondaime Hokage, also known as the Yellow Flash. Using seals, it allows the user to 'jump' from one seal to another, manipulating space and time. In essence, the Hiraishin is a teleportation technique. Naruto, however does not need to use seals as his father did when in Bijuu-mode. He seems to have inherited the technique from his father's blood, making it possible for him to just picture his destination and teleport to it, so long as said destination is within sight.**

**Susanoo: Tempestuous God of Valor**

**Rank: S**

**Properties: Only usable by wielders of the Mangekyō Sharingan, and to some extent, the Rinnegan. Summons a huge ethereal warrior around the castor to protect and fight for the summoner. The warrior has three stages. Stage 1: Skeleton. Stage 2: Warrior with flesh. Stage 3: Armored Warrior. All three stages are able to wield weapons, although the more substance the warrior has, the stronger it is. Susanoo users have the ability to summon parts of the warrior at a time, such as the ribcage, or a sword-bearing arm. Sasuke's Susanoo is purple in color. Excessive use of the Susanoo, or any other Mangekyō Sharingan technique without an Eternal ****Mangekyō Sharingan _will_ eventually cause the user to go blind.**


	8. Chapter 7: Limitations

**Author's Note****: Whoo! Over 11 K hits! You guys are awesome! I know that chapter 6: destiny of the uchiha disappointed a lot of people, but thanks to those of you who've stuck with me so far.**

**BTW, if the reason you are mad is because now Sasuke is 'more powerful' than Naruto, you have seriously underestimated his Six-Paths Sage Mode. Naruto **_**will**_** be the most powerful individual on Team Seven.**

**But _please_ keep in mind, the powers do not make the individual (Fine, fine. Sasuke's powers _consumed_ him, but I'm still going to stick to this philosophy for Team Seven in the story, but not by that much). **

**For Sasuke bashers, or bashers in general… you won't find any joy in this story. For yaoi fans, I've already stated that there won't be pairings, at least among Team Seven. They are a trio of **_**friends**_**, and will not change in that regard.**

**Alright, now to the actual confusing parts about this story. **

**I based Sasuke's Mangekyō as 'different' because of the fact that his Mangekyō is red with a black border, unlike every other that we've ever seen in Naruto which are black-with a red border. I dunno... This just seemed like kind of an inversion of sorts to me. A signal, if you will, that Sasuke's eyes had more power than most. But more than that, I at least wanted Sasuke to be able to stand up against Madara and Izana... Don't worry, Sasuke won't completely dominate them _if_ he confronts them. They'll definitely be a challenge for Team Seven.**

**Also, I have a semi-plausible explanation as to why he was able to get the Rinnegan at all. Remember, his Mangekyō was simply a broken seal, unlocked by abandoning his hatred for his brother Itachi (Yes, I _know_ Sasuke just switched to hating the village, but I'm just focusing on his ultimate hatred for Itachi suddenly being replaced with love and regret). To actually get the Rinnegan, Sasuke needed Senju DNA (which was how Madara unlocked his eyes in the first place). You'll find out soon enough where he supposedly picked that up.**

**With Naruto's Rikud****ō** Sennin Mode, it has the same powers as Naruto's Toad Sage-mode, but amplified six-fold (Get it?). He has enhanced sensory, attack rage, speed, and strength, and chakra. But more than that, the Six Paths Sage-Mode is intimately connected to the Rinnegan, ultimately being the source of it's power. Had Nagato been a sage when he invaded Konoha, when he resurrected the dead in the village, the nature energy would have easily fueled his Rinnegan and he would have survived. In a way, Naruto is half of the Sage of Six Paths, completely mastering the 'body' aspect, by being a sage _and_ a jinchuuriki. Sasuke is slightly behind in this regard, as he doen't have the strength to fully wield his eyes.

**Now, my thanks to all my reviewers since chapter 6.**

**william and jack and jake**

**ichi'nukeni-Namikazemaki**

**Koko**

**yukina-kun**

**shadowmarialove**

**AyameRose**

**Aloxamax**

**0Darkness0**

**johnn**

**Anbu Codename-Kuro**

**bon123**

**Unknown Shinobi**

**Crystalzap**

**bostafu**

**Dimension Distorter**

**XT3**

**risen truth ruthless lies**

**VLS**

**imsabbel**

**erosennin56**

**evil-pain**

**Now, in this chapter, Sakura's training will be revealed, and Team Seven will finally go back in time.**

**The chapter starts off about a day after Sasuke passed out.**

The Clan Wars

Chapter 7: Limitations

"What do you _mean_ I can't use it?" Sasuke demanded as he fixed Sakura with his livid Uchiha-style glare. Most people, even highly trained ninja, would have wet themselves at the concentration of killing-intent the Uchiha was releasing. Sakura however wasn't intimidated in the least. She closed the distance between them and clonked her black-haired teammate in the head.

"Gah!" Sasuke grunted as he staggered from the force of the blow.

From somewhere behind them, Naruto sniggered. "Hah! Sasuke-teme! You should know better than to argue with Sakura-chan. This one time she-", Naruto was cut off in his animated retelling as Sasuke interrupted.

"Dobe, shut up. I _demand_ an explanation from her." Turning to Sakura, he snarled, "Is there even a real _reason_ that I can't use the Rinnegan?" The dōjutsu had deactivated since he passed out, and he couldn't seem to turn it back on.

Sakura folded her arms across her chest, clearly not impressed. It was like she was arguing with a little boy who wanted to eat sweets for every meal. The idiocy! And she had thought that Sasuke had been doing so _well_ with his temper control.

"Are you really questioning _my_ medical skills, Sasuke-kun?" she asked in a sweet syrupy voice. Naruto, recognizing the symptoms of an impending explosion, wisely inched away whistling inconspicuously.

Sasuke, not having spent nearly as much time with Sakura as Naruto had, tried to protest.

"But it doesn't make any sense! Why would I be able to unlock the Rinnegan if my body couldn't handle it? I have these eyes for a reason: because I have the power to wield them."

Sakura waited patiently for Sasuke to finish his tirade, then calmly made her reply. With a punch to the head.

SMACK!

"No, you don't."

Sasuke looked ready to explode when Sakura put her hands up in a truce.

"Just let me explain, okay?"

"Hn. This had better be good."

"Oh, trust me, it is. _I_ was freaked out when found out." Sakura paused and placed her pointer finger on her chin, obviously trying to think of how to phrase her discovery.

"Ah! I've got it!"

Sasuke glared at her. This was getting old.

"Well?" he demanded.

"Oh, pipe down! I swear, you're worse than Naruto when someone tries to take his ramen!" Sakura exclaimed as she idly twirled a finger in her hair.

Sasuke growled menacingly, but the pink-haired woman was long-since immune to the antics of her two friends. True, they had all grown. Naruto and Sasuke were both getting more muscular, looking more like men than boys. Naruto was actually growing out his hair in an attempt to honor his father while Sasuke retained his duck-butt hairstyle. But despite these changes, they both acted like such _toddlers_ sometimes.

"So" she began. "Have you ever bothered to think how Naruto gathers sage-chakra?"

The teenage boy was understandably confused.

"No, and what does that have to do with anything?" he demanded.

"Oh, it has to do with _everything_."

"… Why?"

Sakura palmed her face and sighed. She had hoped that the so-called Uchiha genius would at least pick up what she was hinting at.

Lifting her face back up, she pressed on with a determined expression.

"Okay, now I'm going to explain. And you're going to _listen_. Clear?"

Sasuke stopped at that. There was no compromise in her tone, only a promise of severe pain at any sign of disobedience.

Sakura nodded in approval.

"Good. Now then, Naruto gathers nature energy by more or less becoming its beacon." She paused, making sure that Sasuke was grasping what she was trying to say. At his look of annoyance for said pause, she forged on.

"I still don't know exactly how he does it, but he draws nature energy to him like a moth to a flame."

"… I still don't see the point." Sasuke declared after Sakura looked at him expectantly, as though he was just supposed to have some epiphany. But more than that, this was about him not being able to use his Rinnegan! Could they just skip to that? But before he could voice his discontent, Sakura answered his question.

"My _point_ is that technically, no matter how much attraction that the sage-chakra has for Naruto, there shouldn't be enough in the room for him to use his sage-mode."

Sasuke's nose scrunched up thoughtfully at this; Sakura was right. From what his blond teammate had told him about the sage-mode, nature energy was the product of a constant flow of life itself. It was everywhere, permeating even the most desolate places. While it did exist everywhere in the world, some places just didn't have enough residual life-energy for a sage to harness. So how did Naruto do it here?

There were absolutely no living things besides three humans, admittedly incredibly powerful humans, and the Kyuubi jinchuuriki. By all rights, there shouldn't have been enough life energy for Naruto to harness in his regular sage-mode much less his Six Paths Sage-Mode, which required three times as much sage-chakra.

Sakura, seeing the unspoken question in his eyes, explained. "It's the Rikudō Sennin. He's the one who created this place. As such, it is literally overflowing with his life force."

Sasuke frowned. "If that's true, then I should have felt it. In fact, I don't sense _any_ energy coming from the room right now."

"True." Sakura murmured. "Do you remember our fight with the Juubi?"

Sasuke's eyes grew haunted. "Who could forget?"

"Well, at the beginning of the battle, Naruto used his sage-mode to try to gauge its power… It was like it wasn't even there. It was so overwhelmingly dominant that none of us could even _comprehend_ how strong it was, much less sense it."

Sasuke was silent for a moment as Sakura gave him some time to digest the information. Then he spoke.

"So you think that the sage is the same? That his chakra is so massive that we couldn't detect it if we tried unless he _wanted_ us to notice?"

Sakura frowned. Sasuke actually looked a bit freaked out.

"Relax, Sasuke-kun. He's on our side, remember?"

Sasuke was about to protest that he wasn't _afraid_, but at the knowing smile the green-eyed girl shot at him, he settled for seething while she spoke.

"Anyway, the interesting thing is that Naruto has been drawing his sage-chakra from Sennin-sama's own chakra that's been scattered throughout the room. Sasuke froze.

"If that's possible…" he murmured, eyes wide.

Sakura took over as he trailed off. "Then it's possible that the three of us have been unknowingly assimilating Sennin-sama's chakra subconsciously. I mean, it would be impossible _not_ to, with how much he throws around."

Sasuke looked stunned. "So my Rinnegan…?"

"Was a product of your Mangekyō Sharingan pushed to its limits with your body accumulating Sennin-sama's chakra. Chakra as potent as his would definitely be able to make enhancements to the human body. In fact, I'm sure it's why we're training in here." She gestured around them and they both glanced to where Naruto was having a heated discussion with Kurama about something, probably about the virtues of ramen. The old sage stood a distance away, obviously amused by their antics.

"He must have known what his chakra would do, that it would at least give you the potential to unlock the Rinnegan. From what you've told me about the seal ingrained in the Sharingan, the Rinnegan will only surface once you've abandoned your hate. And of course, after the eternal Mangekyō Sharingan has been unlocked"

Sasuke looked up hopefully at her. Everything she had said was plausible so far.

"But you still don't have the body to use it." She decided ruthlessly.

"B-But!" Sasuke sputtered.

"No buts!" Sakura snapped. "You were passed out for a _day_ from chakra exhaustion! That _never_ happens anymore with the training you've gone through. You just don't have the chakra required to safely use those eyes."

Sasuke couldn't argue with that. After a single technique with the Rinnegan, it had been impossible for him to stay conscious. Then he frowned as a possibility came to his mind.

"Sakura."

"Yes?" The pink-haired medic raised an eyebrow. Sasuke sounded… serious.

"If I built up my chakra reserves, would I be able to safely use the Rinnegan?"

Sakura was about to answer when someone else beat her to the question.

"I'm afraid not, Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke spun around to find the sage and Naruto behind him. Kurama had evidently returned to his dwelling place inside of Naruto's Eight-Trigrams seal, because he was nowhere to be found. The Uchiha gritted his teeth.

"Care to explain?"

The sage narrowed his eyes slightly and Sasuke immediately stiffened as killer-intent filled the air. Respect was something that the sage demanded. While the old man did treat the three teens as he did his own children, they were not immune to punishment should they show a hint of disrespect.

"Control yourself, Sasuke-kun. Or you may find yourself with no tomatoes for the duration of your training."

Sasuke's eyes widened involuntarily. He nodded mutely in submission. The Sennin appeared to be satisfied.

"Now then, I suppose I should finish telling you of the Rinnegan. Don't worry about Sakura-chan and Naruto-kun, they've been filled in." The sage motioned for the trio to take seats on the floor before him. They sighed, as always. The old man treated them like such kids sometimes…

"When the gods chose me as their champion, the Samsara eyes were not the only gift I was granted." The Rikudō Sennin paused as Team Seven looked at him in confusion. This was obviously the first they'd heard of this. Apparently his youngest child hadn't bothered to explain his bloodline to his own children who eventually became the Senju. As such, there weren't even legends of their abilities. Not that it mattered. In those rare few that managed to fully activate it, it worked subconsciously.

"Ano," Naruto began. "What was the second gift?"

The sage looked at Naruto with a serious expression.

"My body."

Naruto just looked confused, while Sakura's eyes dawned with a sort of comprehension. Sasuke on the other hand looked delighted, like he had found the missing piece to a colossal puzzle.

Naruto squinted his eyes and scrunched up his nose, almost in disbelief. He looked constipated.0

"Your body? It's not normal?"

"Yes, and let me explain," the sage warned as Naruto opened his mouth to ask yet another question. "The Rinnegan is the most powerful bloodline the world will ever see… But it is not without cost. It requires massive amounts of chakra to function properly. But worse than that, it eats away at the user's body in overuse."

"Like Nagato," Naruto murmured after a moment of silence. He remembered how frail his sibling-student had been after the attack on Konoha. The man had resembled a skeleton more so than a living person, almost as if usage of his dōjutsu had been robbing him of his vitality.

"Yes," the sage agreed while nodding. "Like Nagato."

Kurama had been quite descriptive of the boy. It seemed that instead of simply allowing the Rinnegan's power to completely destroy his body, he had managed to prolong the inevitable degeneration by splitting up his Paths.

Nagato had actually found a way to completely seal six of the Rinnegan's aspects inside corpses, which he controlled while retaining the Seventh Path, the Outer Path that granted control over life and death, within his own body. In short, the boy was a genius who had died far too young.

"So to counteract the Rinnegan's negative effects, the gods granted me a rather unique body." The trio of eighteen-year-olds looked at him quizzically.

"The gods altered my body, changing it to match their own. That transformation is what granted me my massive chakra reserves and healing as well as increasing my lifespan. It is the reason that I have survived in this dimension, despite being mortal. And," the sage paused momentarily, looking pointedly at Naruto. "It is the bloodline that you've inherited."

A beat.

"WHAT!?" Sakura screamed, while everyone flinched away from her. With what the sage had revealed, years of medical research would be overruled. With a single fact. It was _infuriating._

"S-So…" she spluttered, regaining some control over herself. "Naruto has massive chakra and killer healing abilities _not_ just because he's a jinchuuriki, but because it's a gift from the _gods_?" Naruto looked understandably shocked, but also thrilled. Sasuke, on the other hand looked sour, as the answer he had sought was forever out of his grasp.

The Rikudō Sennin sighed in resignation. He knew that the girl wouldn't stop asking questions until she was satisfied, and that took _hours_.

"Yes, Sakura. It is the second half of my identity. I am the Sage of Six Paths. The Rinnegan is what grants me my access to the Six Paths. However, it is my body that allows me to be a sage." Then he turned to Sasuke.

"And that is why it will never be safe for you to use the Rinnegan."

Sasuke glared at the ancient man for a moment before turning away in a huff. The sage smirked at his antics.

"Oh, don't be like that, Sasuke-kun. Now that you've at least unlocked your full potential, your eyes will be undoubtedly stronger."

Sasuke looked up suspisciously. "My Mangekyō?"

The sage nodded. "It shall be even more powerful than before. I did not have you unlock the Rinnegan just to bar you from using it. Although the Samsara eyes are a _forbidden_ dōjutsu for you to use," Sasuke frowned at that. "The broken seal on the Sharingan will allow far more power to flow through your eyes."

Sasuke smirked. "Hn, I am glad that this is not my full potential." Then, turning to Naruto with a glare, he growled, "I want a rematch!"

Naruto glared right back. "Bring it on, Teme!"

Sakura promptly smack them both on their heads.

"GAAAHH!" Two simultaneous shouts rang through the air as Sakura held up her fists menacingly, flooding the room with killing-intent.

"BAKA! Neither of you are fighting for another two days! Sasuke, you passed out from chakra exhaustion! Naruto!" She paused to grab said blonde by the collar of his orange jumpsuit as he tried to inch away.

"STAY STILL BAKA!" She screamed while furiously shaking him like a ragdoll, obviously frustrated that he had tried to run away. After it was clear that Naruto was no longer responsive, Sakura dropped him in a mangled heap of limbs and continued to yell at his prone form.

"EVEN _YOU_ WERE SLIGHTLY EXHAUSTED! NO TRAINING!"

"Unnnhh…" Naruto groaned from his decidedly uncomfortable position on the floor.

Then the sage stepped in with a raised eyebrow. "Sakura-chan? I think that Naruto-kun gets your point. So why don't you let him up?"

The medic sighed. Ninja patients were the _worst_. They always pushed their bodies as far as they could handle, and then they refused to spend an adequate amount of time to rest and recuperate because, as Lee had once declared when they were all still genin, _'TIME NOT SPENT TRAINING IS TIME WASTED! WASTING TIME IS MOST UNYOUTHFULL! YOSH!_'

For this reason, all of the doctors and nurses in Konoha's hospital were highly trained in restraining tactics. Sealing, knot tying, and even the utilization of the tenketsu points in order to subdue any unruly patients. With the reign of the Godaime, Tsunade Senju, the hospital had received quite a bit of Konoha's funds due to the Hokage being a medic herself. One of the first things that Tsunade had seen to was making sure that the hospitable was impenetrable from the inside, virtually a prison, to prevent any recovering nin from escaping before they were officially released.

Naruto had been understandably frustrated by these new measures. His ramen called to him and he couldn't do a _thing_ about it! That is, until the war started. Now he would have been happy to be sealed in his hospital room and chained to his bed if he could just _see_ those familiar faces again. But that was what they were fighting for. The world itself was on the line, and they would _not_ fail.

* * *

***_One Week Later_***

Sakura was no slouch. True, she couldn't keep up with her two teammates in terms of raw power, but she was far from helpless.

She pushed herself off of the ground and looked towards where Naruto and Sasuke were sparring again. Sasuke had gotten much more proficient with his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, although he was still disgruntled about not being able to wield the Rinnegan. Naruto on the other hand was a bit annoyed that he was constantly forced by Sasuke to enter his chakra-mode when it was supposed to be step-one of his Ultimate Technique.

But now, they clashed with wild abandon. The white room was the perfect battleground, as it would never falter under anyone but the Rikudō Sennin himself. Even the Juubi itself wouldn't have been able to make a dent. Nor, for that matter, would a trio of Naruto-clones making a Futon: Rasenshruiken. The wind howled furiously, spiraling around the clones while they finished the jutsu even as the real Naruto was engaging Sasuke.

The Uchiha had his regular Sharingan activated, but that would be more than enough for now. Naruto hadn't even managed to enter his annoying Six-Paths Sage Mode yet. But then he heard it. That infernal howling. He turned around to witness a Naruto clone with a completed Rasenshruiken bearing down on him. _'Crap!'_

Sakura watched as Sasuke dashed around the clone, keeping as far away as possible, using his Sharingan for all it was worth. Sasuke was fortunate that Naruto wasn't in his sage-mode yet, otherwise Naruto could have simply thrown the Rasenshruiken at him and the Uchiha would have ended up a bloody mess. But just recently, such wounds were no longer a problem for Sakura; now she could prevent the wounds from occurring in the first place.

***_Flashback: Six Months Ago_***

_Sakura stood apprehensively before the God of Shinobi. Today was the first day of her training, and ever since the Rikudō Sennin had gauged her abilities in his spar against Team Seven, she had been slightly afraid of him. The man was ruthless. He didn't seem to know the meaning of 'holding back' and had fought with with no intention of going easy on them, which was actually kind of scary. Naruto's clones, although they numbered in the thousands, were destroyed in an instant. The worst part was that Sakura knew that the man was only using a fraction of his strength so that he wouldn't kill them outright. That was one quality of Tsunade that she did _not_ want to see in the founder of ninjutsu_

_The sage, with breathtaking speed, had silenced the army in seconds. One gigantic 'POP!' later, and only the three teens were remaining in formation against the sage. Sasuke spear-headed the formation with his Susanoo warrior already cloaking his body. The real Naruto was flanking his right, with his orange rings finally appearing around his eyes. Sakura was guarding Sasuke's left with a chakra enhanced fist. And the sage was slightly disappointed; he had expected more of the team that had brought down the Juubi. As they were now, he could defeat them in a matter of seconds!_

_But her green chakra cloaking Sakura's fist had caught his eye. After the training match, in which Team Seven had gotten their asses handed to them in the most humiliating ways imaginable, the sage had approached Sakura, who was lying on her back in exhaustion._

_"Sakura-chan? Do you have a moment?"_

_"Unnnnhh..."_

_Then the old man leaned down and tapped her bruised, rather large forehead with a chakra-laced finger. The results were immediate. Sakura's chakra reserves, reservoirs which normally took _hours_ to fill naturally, were replenished within seconds. Not only that, but the Sennin had known to avoid pumping in too much chakra which would have caused severe chakra burns. Just how much did he know?_

_"Better now?"_

_"Y-Yes." Sakura tried to stand up, but the sage motioned for her to stay seated while he stood before her like a lecturer from the academy._

_"Good. I have a few questions." He raised a silver eyebrow at her. "I _sincerely_ hope you can grant me the answers that I'm looking for"_

_Sakura frowned. The tone of his voice... Was he _challenging_ her? Was he really implying that she wasn't _smart_ enough to answer his questions?_

_The pink-haired kunoichi started to seethe. She had never been one to control her temper. And the doddering old fool standing before her had made a _huge_ mistake by taking a jab at her intelligence. Just when she was ready to explode, the sage surprised her. He started laughing. Sakura froze. The way that he laughed. It was so _familiar_, so full of life. It was like Naruto's own laugh so much that it was just eerie. __  
_

_"Aahhh...", the sage gasped after his laughter had died down. Then he grinned at Sakura with a suspiciously evil smile. "You've got _fire_ in you. I like that! Maybe you won't be so useless after all!"_

_A beat._

_On the floor, Sakura had transformed from an exhausted girl to a vengeful demon in a matter of seconds, for the sage had uttered the forbidden word. He had said it _out-loud. _With a _smile_. And now he was going to experience a world of pain. She shot up off of the floor._

_**"WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME, YOU OLD GEEZER!"** The sage was totally unfazed. In fact, he was smirking, almost like Sasuke would at Naruto when they were both genin. He was just egging her on!_

_"Useless," Sakura's aura turned blood-red as she struggled to reign in her growing killing intent, "is what you are _now_. By the time I'm finished with you, you will be irreplaceable." Sakura's bloodlust dimmed slightly, but didn't disappear altogether. This old man! Was he trying to insult her or reassure her? She wasn't sure, so she slunk back down to the floor, glowering the whole way. She wasn't useless! Next to Tsunade-sama and Shizune, she was one of the top ninja medics in the world!_

_"Anyway," the sage said with a cheerful smile, as though he _hadn't_ just repeatedly insulted the girl in front of him, "What was the technique that you used in in the fight? It almost looked like an explosion of chakra in your arms. But if it actually was, your arm should be completely shredded." He looked at her curiously, obviously expecting some kind of response._

_Sakura was astonished. To guess that much about her technique after one battle... He had even caught the single error with her super-strength technique. It required extreme chakra control, utilizing refined explosions of chakra to grant bursts of strength in the relative area of the body where the explosion occurred. It was safe for her and Tsunade-sama to use it, as it was almost instinctual for both of them. However, a single mistake could become potentially life threatening. Should they not actually utilize the chakra that they burn in their body for the super-strength, or for some reason lose control, the chakra would quite literally explode, tearing through flesh, blood, and bone alike. _

_This phenomena had been discovered by the Hidden Leaf when a sleeper-agent of Iwa had somehow figured out the mechanics of Tsunade's super-strength by stealing hospital records close to the end of the Third Shinobi War. The remains were... gruesome. The kunoichi's arms were completely gone, spread across the clearing where she had been practicing by her exploding chakra. Her face was an unrecognizable mess and her chest was almost completely caved in. After that, the Sandaime had done his best to make Tsunade abandon her fighting style in favor of a... _safer_ one. But she had dug in her heels and promptly refused, pointing out that she was far more adept than some Iwa nin who couldn't tell the difference between a chakra-scalpel and a chakra-disruptor. Sarutobi knew he would never win the argument, so he let it go. But he never stopped worrying about his student, Sannin or not._

_"Sakura-chan?"_

_Sakura was jerked back to reality as the Sennin waved a hand in front of her face. A tick mark appeared on her forehead. Didn't he know he was being rude?_

_"Hai, you're right about the explosion of chakra, but my chakra-control is refined enough that almost all of it goes into my attack. The bits that escape are miniscule enough that they don't cause any damage to my chakra coils."_

_The sage pause in thought for a moment. Super-strength, huh? So _that_ was what she was trying to do. He never found out because she never managed to touch him. But such control... Sakura Haruno would be an interesting student, no doubt._

_"Is that why you never used any jutsu on me? Because you were relying on your strength?"_

_The girl looked a bit sheepish at that. "Well, most of my stronger jutsu are elemental ninjutsu, and," she gestured around them, "there is a distinct lack of both earth and water."_

_The sage sighed. She could have at least _asked_. But that was nothing that couldn't be rectified. He would learn of what she knew one way or another. He closed his eyes and focused, concentrating on the Yin and Yang chakra residing within him. Sakura gasped when the man's eyes snapped open after several minutes of her trying to get him to respond, Rinnegan blazing into existence._

_"Banbatsu Sōzo." The sage was treated to another cry of surprise from Sakura as she suddenly found herself knee-deep in a pool of water that had come from nowhere. She was slowly sinking into what was hopefully mud at the bottom. Quickly analyzing the situation, Sakura scrambled to the top of the pool and rested astride the water, her feet maintaining her upright posture with a constant flow of chakra. She grimaced a bit at her suddenly muddy feet._

_The sage smiled indulgently. "A lack of equipment shouldn't be a problem now, should it Sakura-chan?"_

_For her part, Sakura was a bit despondent. Sure, she had her strength and her knowledge as a ninja medic trained by Tsunade herself. But combat jutsu-wise, _ especially_ with elemental jutsu, Sakura was a bit lacking. Of course, it didn't really matter when all she needed to crush a White-Zetsu Clone or an Edo-Tensei corpse for that matter was a single chakra-laced blow._

_"Hai, Sennin-sama."_

_The sage raised a silver eyebrow. 'Sennin-sama?'. He liked that._

_Then Sakura began to flash through her seals at a dizzying speed-_

_"Inu, atsu, saru, ryu"_

_-before the sage stopped her with a raised hand. Why did he look... so confused?_

_"Sakura-chan... what are you doing? I just told you to attack me with elemental ninjutsu."_

_Sakura frowned. "That's what I was doing, I can't use my jutsu without my seals and... why do you look so lost?"_

_The sage was standing before Sakura, staring at her as if she were some rare specimen, like a three-headed elephant with a flipper._

_"Seals? Why would you need seals for ninjutsu? What do they_ do_ anyway?_"

_Sakura just stared at the perplexed old man with her mouth open. Was he being _serious_? The _founder_ of _ninjutsu_ didn't know what _seals_ were? How on earth did he ever beat the Juubi? Seals were used to channel chakra, and to preform ninjutsu without the required seals required on average twice the chakra and triple the control._

_But to defeat the _Juubi_, the pinnacle of all monstrosities in the world, with _no hand seals_. It shouldn't have been possible, but the existence of the world begged to differ._

_Sakura was broken out of her shock-induced state when the sage walked up to her and started waving his hands in front of her face. "Sakura-chan? Are you well?"_

_Sakura recovered relatively quickly for someone who had discovered possibly the greatest kept secret in history. The Rikudō Sennin didn't invent the zodiac hand seals! But if he didn't, then who did?_

_"Hai, Sennin-sama. I'm just a bit confused. Do you really not know what hand seals do?"_

_The sage's eyebrows bunched together, voicing his curiosity. It seemed that these 'hand seals' Sakura spoke of were more important than he thought._

_"I must admit, Sakura-chan, I don't see the purpose of these... _hand seals_ in combat-style ninjutsu. And from the little you've shown me so far, by the time you finished with that pattern, I could had killed you ten times over."_

_Sakura gulped. _Ten times?_ She had been making her seals for barely three seconds, and here the sage was telling her that he could have killed her at his leisure!_

_"Well", she began, "the handseals are used to channel and convert chakra. Without them, most ninja can't use any ninjutsu." She frowned, "Are you really unaware of hand seals? They are one of the foundations of ninjutsu!"_

_"Then why did I not witness you or your teammates using any during our fight?"_

_"..." He had a point. Handseals were something that higher-level ninja usually skipped past because, as the old man had pointed out, they took too long. Making_ _handseals_,_ no matter how fast, inevitably wasted time in a fight. For this reason, all ninja trained to use their technique with as few handseals as possible. Naruto, for example, no longer needed his cross-seal for the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Sasuke never needed any seals for jutsu involving the Sharingan, which of course, he had spammed during the fight. _

_Sakura was never really a jutsu user. She was a medic, a _really_ good one too. Any when she needed to, she could level mountains with her fist, which was why she had never really focused on jutsu. So in that regard, it was understandable that the sage was confused now. Between Naruto's bijuu-mode, Sasuke's Sharingan, and her own super-strength and lack of ninjutsu, this would be the first time he ever saw hand seals for ninjutsu._

_The sage interrupted Sakura's musings, "Show me, I would like to learn the mechanics of such ninjutsu."_

_Sakura nodded obediently and flashed through her seals once again to preform a moderately powerful suiton jutsu. _

___"Inu, atsu, saru, ryu, tora! Suiryūdan no Jutsu!" Sakura maintained her position on the water's surface as a globe of liquid suddenly lifted from the pool and burst toward the sage. Sakura loved this technique, even if water wasn't her primary element._

___The Rikudō Sennin made no effort to move as the chakra-propelled water shot toward him. Sakura was about to call out a warning for him to move. After all, those water bullets could tear through trees. But then she remembered how the sage had fought. Ninjutsu was worse than useless against him; he just absorbed the technique, chakra and all. The only way that any of the three teenagers could get close to him was with taijutsu, but even then, he seemed to be toying with them, pushing them to the best of their abilities._

___For this reason, Sakura was completely unsurprised when her deadly water-bullets, a perfect combination of accuracy and power, dissipated harmlessly around the ancient man._

___For his part, the ____Rikudō Sennin was lost in thought. These hand seals... while they were consistent, they were also restricting. He had created elemental ninjutsu to be free-flowing, and spontaneous. While these hand seals were certainly useful in converting chakra into an elemental affinity, they put a chokehold onto what the user could_ do_ with it. _

_For example, Sakura's water bullet first used the seals to convert her chakra into water-natured chakra, but then it just shot it at a target. Nothing else. There was so much that could be _done_ with the water element. Water spears, whips, bullets, waves, mist, steam, ice, torrents, bubbles. But all of that opportunity was cut down, restricted by those stupid seals. He was going to have to fix that first..._

***_Flashback End_***

Sakura snapped into action as she saw Sasuke summon an advanced version of Chidori on his right arm, even as he deftly avoided the blonde's trust with the Rasenshruiken. The two males stared at each other for a moment, then started racing towards each other with their jutsu still active. The air thrummed with the power they exuded. Sakura was fuming. _'Those _idiots_! Why do they never hold back!'_

Sakura raced furiously toward the pair of suicidal ninja. _Immerse yourself within the flow of your life-force._ Technically, it was a principle of sage-mode, but the Sennin had insisted that it was vital to ninjutsu as well. He was right. With the countless hours of meditation Sakura had undertaken, she didn't even have to think about calling her chakra from within herself. It was instinctual now, like breathing. It could be done without a second's thought.

Now, Sakura lost herself as she merged with the flow of life in the room. She was still running toward those two idiots, but she was... detached. She was a part of _everything_. Sakura absently wondered if this was what sage-mode felt like. Near omniscience. Then she focused on her task once more as she felt Sasuke's and Naruto's chakra flare in anticipation, but it was confusing. There was no bloodlust here. This was a spar between brothers. But Sakura was angered. In this detached state, she could feel the influx of emotions of around her. The boys thought that this was... _fun?_ They thought that using S-ranked techniques against each other was _fun?_

She should have been used to it by now, but Sakura saw red. Before she knew it, she was right in between Naruto and Sasuke, both of whom were extremely alarmed and unable to stop their techniques.

Naruto was frantic, "Get out of the way, Sakura-chan!"

Sasuke was a bit less polite about it, but he showed the same concern, "Move it, woman!"

_'... He is _so_ going to pay for that later. But first things first...' _

Sakura calmly reached out with her palms towards both boys as the lethal ninjutsu raced toward her. She wasn't suicidal, she was _prepared_. Over the past six months, the Rikudō Sennin had taught her not only the astounding nuances of the human body which she was only beginning to discover with Tsunade, but the man had also taken it up onto himself to teach her true elemental manipulation.

Mastery of the elements. Something once considered impossible to impossible to all except for the Rikudō Sennin himself. In the ninja would, everyone was born with a primary and _maybe_ a secondary elementary affinity, and they stuck to it like superglue, never truly expanding their on mastery. And even then, it was always coddled by those blasted seals. Granted, some ninja didn't need hand seals for their ninjutsu, like Sasuke with his Chidori, but that elemental mastery was often limited to a few techniques.

But Sakura... Sakura had been training like a woman possessed. The sage's concept of ninjutsu, the original ninjutsu was absolutely _insane_. And she loved it. Without any handseals, Sakura was required to have absolute mastery over her chakra-control. But it was freedom. Without any seals restraining her chakra, Sakura could use it to do _anything_. With just a wave of her hand, she could hurl boulders across miles or send waves over anything. But without the seals, she needed perfect control to exert her will over her chakra. Honestly, it took quite a bit of concentration.

At first, Sakura was a bit downcast that she could only master the earth and water elemental ninjutsu, but the sage quickly dispelled her fears. While earth and water were her 'actual' elementary affinities, it wasn't impossible to master the others. Admittedly, her control over the other elements would be inherently weaker, but it would still rival the most precise seals. Now, Sakura could stand proudly aside Naruto and Sasuke in terms of ability. She was a true mistress of the elements.

And as such, a futon and raiton jutsu hurtling toward her at high speeds from opposite directions was _nothing_. Sakura compressed wind chakra around her left palm. Wind, so wild and free, yet furious when contained. An element not to be trifled with. She let the power build up, allowing her body to siphon the chakra on instinct. Then, she released it. That was all. A build-up of chakra, then just a release in the right direction. The results were spectacular.

Sasuke was completely blown away, his Chidori disrupted. If Sakura's free-form attack had a name, it would have probably been something like 'Just-Blow-Em-All no Jutsu'. Naruto, who was still falling toward Sakura, had his jaw dropped to the floor. Since when could Sakura knock _Sasuke_ around?

But Sakura wasn't done. Not in the least. She turned towards Naruto with a dangerous glare, even as his jutsu propelled him forward, which made Naruto gulp in spite of himself. She made a circle with the forefinger and thumb of her right hand and breathed in deeply through it, looking remarkably like one of Naruto's toads. Then she spit out fire. The flaming missile hurtled toward Naruto, who had to use his Rasenshruiken just to prevent his own barbeque. He barely escaped after he released his jutsu and watched Sakura's already moderately-sized firebolt transform into a searing inferno.

For a few moments, everything was dead silent. Then Sasuke burst out, "What the hell was _that_?" Oh, he was mad for several reasons, the main one being that his fight with Naruto had been interrupted. But he was also angry that Sakura had put herself in danger like that, success or not. However, he wasn't surprised. the pinkette had been training in seal-less ninjutsu for months.

Naruto was far more impressed. "Wow, Sakura-chan! How did you _do_ that? Can you show me so I can beat Sasuke-teme? You blew him out of the sky!"

For her part, Sakura wasn't happy. With _anyone_. "You _idiots,_" she hissed. "What the _hell_ were you doing, using those techniques against each other? Both of you could have _died_." Sakura shocked both boys when tears started leaking out of her eyes. "What would I do if one of you died? If one of you actually hit, even _I_ wouldn't have been able to do anything about it!"

Sasuke's eyes grew wide as Sakura started sobbing. He didn't know how to handle this! Not only could Sakura toss him around, but she had a bipolar personality?

Naruto was far more contrite as he stared guiltily at his pink-haired teammate. "We're sorry Sakura-chan. It won't happen again."

Sakura stumbled towards him and punched him weakly in his shoulder. Naruto thanked whatever gods there were that she wasn't using chakra.

"You bet it won't!" she declared while sniffling. "I won't go through watching you two fight like that again. I won't!"

Sasuke rolled his eyes. "We were just training Sakura. There's no need to _cry_ about it." He frowned, even as Naruto shot him a warning glance and Sakura tensed dangerously. He ignored them. "Honestly, I thought that you would have grown up by now."

That was the last thing that Sasuke said before Sakura knocked him out cold with a surprise upper-cut to the jaw.

"Immature bastard!" Sakura muttered darkly. She shot a glare at Naruto, freezing the panicked blonde in place.

He was rightfully afraid of the vengeful pinkette before him. "S-Sakura-chan. I-It was only Sasuke-teme who said that."

She took one menacing step forward.

Naruto took off, flashing away in Hiraishin.

Sakura roared after him. "NARUTO YOU CHEAP BASTARD! THAT'S NO FAIR! YOU STILL HAVEN'T GOTTEN PUNISHED!"

* * *

***_One Month Later_***

Even Naruto had to admit: the food spread out before them was a bit much for dinner. The old man had conjured a Bijuu-sized bowl of ramen that could comfortably accommodate twelve elephants.

Sakura was eyeing the three-foot tall pile of dango, while Sasuke was trying not to drool at the tomatoes that had been meticulously placed in a monstrous pyramid. Normally, Team Seven would have plowed halfway through their food, but _someone_ was stopping them!

The Rikudō Sennin smiled mockingly at the three teens as he barred them from their favorite foods. He wasn't stopping them from eating. To even suggest such a thing! All he wanted was for the trio of seventeen-year-olds to answer a single question: 'What is necessary to achieve true peace?'

Sasuke and Sakura were flabbergasted. Naruto looked serious, as if he had already thought about it. Kurama, who was lounging some distance away from them had obviously heard the question and barked out an amused laugh. This was the sage's test of inheritance! He actually thought that those brats were powerful enough to finally be considered his heirs!

The sage watched carefully as the three individuals struggled before him. Sasuke and Sakura looked skeptical, as though they doubted that true peace was even possible. Naruto, however, was deep in thought. He was the only one of the three actively brainstorming for a solution. However, the sage was no Nagato. Naruto couldn't just swear to live by Ero-Sennin's philosophy.

The question was actually impossible to answer, because true peace was impossible to reach. Belligerence was a part of human nature itself, and nothing would change that. Eventually, every period of peace, no matter how enduring, would be broken.

But the sage didn't just want to see his apprentices struggle with a question that couldn't be answered. He wanted to look into their souls. Their answer to the question would voice all of their hopes an desires, intentions both good and bad. A few words could convey volumes.

He had done this test with his own sons. His eldest had been adamant that power was necessary for true peace while his youngest insisted that love was the key. Both of them were disastrously wrong. Only governing the world with love or power would ultimately destroy it, and truth be told, the Rikudō Sennin had been disappointed in both of his sons. They had both grown up in a war-torn world. They both knew the meaning of justice, but also mercy. The were the first witnesses to the dawn of the new era after the Juubi's demise. And they _still_ couldn't give him a good answer.

Then he shook his head and chided himself. Those were thoughts of the past. No matter how much he had loved his sons, it was their idiocy that had led to the Juubi's eventual escape, leaving himself, Kurama, and Team Seven to clean up their mess. They were his sons, but he couldn't forgive them. Not for millennia of bloodshed. Not for the destruction of the world.

Then Naruto groaned and sat down hard, burying his head in his hands. The sage almost laughed. The poor boy looked like he wanted to dig out his eyes with a rusty spoon. And eat them. Then the spoon. Apparently, Naruto wasn't used to using his brain.

Despite Naruto seriously bearing Jiraya's wishes on his shoulders, he hadn't thought of a foolproof path towards peace yet. But he had been thinking, remembering. He remembered the relative happiness and carefree air of the Leaf after Tsunade had become Hokage, how that peacefulness had been razed during Pein's attack on Konoha. Thousands of lives, displaced in an instant. He had claimed that he would protect everyone, that he would usher in a golden age. But he had already failed once before. The Juubi had destroyed what little hope the world had left, and now, Naruto and his friends had one last chance. It was for the world's existence. But peace? Now _that_ was far trickier.

Surprisingly enough, it was Sasuke who answered first.

"There is no answer."

The sage raised an eyebrow curiously.

"Care to explain, Sasuke-kun?"

Sasuke shifted his weight from his left foot to his right, seemingly uncomfortable under the sage's scrutiny.

"Everyone dies eventually. Even you, the great Rikudō Sennin eventually succumbed to old age. Therefore, it is impossible to ensure that the world knows true peace forever."

Naruto was shocked. Sasuke was... right. Even if he had actually managed to kill the Juubi completely and rebuild Konoha, who was to say what would happen to the world after he was gone? Who could ensure that the children of future generations would cherish and protect the world as they did. But Sasuke wasn't finished.

"That is why we must entrust the world to the future generations."

Naruto's head shot up. Shikamaru had told Sasuke about the Hidden Leaf Village's 'King'! The children, the future of the Hidden Leaf. They were the 'King' whom all Konoha shinobi would die to protect. Shikamaru must have slipped it to Sasuke while he took on the Juubi.

Sasuke met Naruto's eyes, black clashing with cerulean blue.

"You understand."

Naruto didn't say anything. He didn't have to. In this way, they were connected. But now, the 'King' wasn't just the children of the Hidden Leaf. It was the children of the entire world.

Naruto glanced over at Sakura. She was staring at the two of them with an expression of open awe. True, Sasuke-kun had returned to the Leaf, but since when did he care about kids? And since when did Naruto understand philosophy?

Naruto stood up and dusted himself off, which was completely unnecessary as the White room was always spotless, courtesy of the Rikudō Sennin. Then he turned to face the sage. He had his answer now.

"Sasuke-teme is right. If we were immortal, then maybe we could save the world over and over again. But I would go crazy after a few hundred years. Ya' know?"

Sakura frowned. Was Naruto actually going anywhere with this?

"But we don't live forever. No one does. Kabuto tried, Orochimaru tried. They are both rotting underground. That's why we have to place our trust in the next generation, because it's _them_ who will fight for the peace that we create. Our job is to light the Will of Fire within them so that they can guard their own 'King's! Dattebayō!"

The sage smiled. _Finally._ He wasn't sure if they were ready, but Team Seven had come a long way since when he had first picked them up. Sakura was a natural with his 'original ninjutsu' as she had dubbed it, something that apparently required perfect chakra control. Sasuke had been able to abandon his hatred and unseal the cursed-eyes of his clan, the Uchiha. Naruto... Naruto had mastered the Six-Paths Sage Mode to the point where the sage actually had to be serious during their spars together.

But power aside, the Sennin was most impressed with their growth as individuals. The three teenagers had slowly developed a more mature world-view. They no longer saw the world as a collection of nations and villages. It was one entity. Everything was connected in their eyes. Every action had a consequence, no matter how miniscule. The sage was starting to see how effective these observational skills could be in manipulating the ninja clans in the wars. These children would be able to see through the far-reaching consequences of taking or sparing a life, mostly because Sakura had spent hours drilling the history of the Shinobi Clan Wars into Naruto and Sasuke's heads. Now, they were truly ready.

"Well then, I guess that you deserve your food after a-" he didn't even get to finish his sentence as Naruto dove into his bowl and Sakura dashed past him to her pile of dango. Sasuke tried valiantly to walk to his tomatoes in a dignified manner: but after a few moments of listening to Naruto draining his gigantic bowl noisily and Sakura munching on her dango, Sasuke gave up and broke out into a full run.

The sage sighed. These kids...

* * *

***_One Month Later_***

"So this is goodbye?" Naruto asked uncertainly. Truth be told, he had grown fond of the old geezer. The sage reminded him of a weird mix between old-man Hokage and Ero-Sennin. A man with a grandfatherly personality, but a childish sense of humor.

BONK! "Itai!" Naruto screamed, clutching his head comically.

Sakura raised her fist threateningly at Naruto with an exasperated expression.

"Baka! Weren't you listening? This isn't goodbye! Sennin-sama is coming with us!"

"Huh? He is? How come no one told me about this?"

From the sidelines of the conversation, Sasuke rolled his eyes. "We _all_ told you, dobe. You were just too busy scarfing down ramen to listen to us."

Naruto bristled. "Shut up, teme! That ramen was too good for anyone to be able to focus!"

The sage interjected. "Now, now Naruto-kun. Let's not blame the ramen for our lapses in attention."

Naruto blushed and stared at his feet.

"Anyway," Sakura continued, "Sennin-sama will be staying in Kurama's cage."

Naruto blinked. "Eh? So I'll be the jinchuuriki for the Rikudō Sennin?"

Sakura shook her head. "No Naruto, only his soul will be sealed within you, not his chakra."

"But why?" Naruto whined. "We could beat Madara in seconds, dattebayō!"

The pink-haired girl sighed. It wasn't as if she didn't share Naruto's sentiments. Madara Uchiha deserved to die. But she also knew that without Madara's support, the Uchiha would never join the Hidden Leaf. Sasuke had explained enough about his clan that Sakura had concluded the Uchiha would almost never trust a Senju. Their hatred for the Senju clan was as old as their Sharingan.

"Oi, Naruto. Listen up!" Naruto straightened his back and stood at attention involuntarily. He may have been the future Rokudaime, but that didn't stop Sakura from ordering him around.

"It's one of the sage's 'rules'." Naruto's eyes dawned with understanding. The sage seemed to have hundreds of those frustrating things that always had to be obeyed. He always acted like it would be the end of the world if they were ever broken, but he never said who made them in the first place.

"Sennin-sama's time was long ago. As such, he cannot go back into the world in his current form. Not only that, but he is sacrificing nearly all of his chakra to send us back that far in time. The White Room will cease to exist"

"Is this true," Naruto breathed while looking at the sage. The old man nodded gravely.

"My time has long-since come, Naruto-kun. After our task is complete, I will release myself from your body and ascend into the afterlife."

A tear trickled down Naruto's cheek. Sakura was in a similar situation. She had truly come to love the old man who had become almost a father to her. Now, she cried without reserve. Sasuke watched impassively, but his fists were clenched and his jaw was tight.

The sage smiled, trying to break though the air of depression that had descended.

"Well then, let's go."

Naruto wiped his tears and nodded through his sleeve. It had ti be done

Then he gasped as the old man pushed his open palm into Naruto's stomach, right on top of the eight-trigrams seal.

"FUIN," the sage roared. The world exploded with chakra.

Naruto gasped. Something was invading him, but it wasn't chakra. It was more like... a presence. The old man was actually doing it! Team Seven watched in fascination as the living legend slowly turned ethereal, and then disappeared, spiraling into Naruto's stomach. Absolute silence.

After several moments of tense waiting, Sakura spoke up.

"N-Naruto? Did it work?"

Naruto took a shaky breath and stood tall. They had a mission to complete.

"Hai, Sakura-chan. The geezer-sage did it. He's inside with Kurama as I speak."

"Dobe." Naruto turned to face Sasuke, raising a questioning eyebrow. "What are the sage's next instructions?"

Naruto closed his eyes for a moment. It was amazing really, just how still such a hyperactive boy could be at command. Then his cerulean-blue eyes snapped back to reality.

"We wait. The old man already did everything for us." Then Naruto's face turned grave. "We have to wait for the white room to fall apart."

"What!" Sakura exclaimed, absolutely shocked. She had at least though that the sage had a faster method of transport. A _safer_ method would have been preferable. She didn't like the idea of just falling out of one dimension into another.

Naruto interrupted her thoughts, hurriedly correcting her. "No, Sakura-chan! The old man has one of his fuinjutsu ingrained into the room. He's been working on it for weeks! It's gonna send us back when the room has dissolved enough."

Sakura glared at Naruto, who flinched under her gaze. Honestly! They couldn't come up with a better plan than this?

"Fine." she muttered under her breath. "But if this doesn't work," her face suddenly morphed into a version of Yamato's 'scary-face', "I'll find you."

Naruto was quivering close to the ground. "O-Okay, Sakura-chan." Sakura snorted and turned away. He really was easy to read sometimes.

Sasuke grunted impatiently in the sidelines. "Hn, Naruto. We might as well use this time to spar."

"Bring it on, Teme!"

They started to walk off towards the arena the sage had created, but then they stopped as the ground shook violently.

"What was _that_!" Sakura cried out in alarm.

The ground shook again, and the arena started to crumble, with huge slabs of stone falling and shattering against the ground. Then, a piece of the dimension fell out. The white room now had a huge, jagged black hole on the floor right behind Team Seven. They watched in horror as the white floor broke off and fell into the darkness.

"Stay together! And stop moving!" Naruto shouted over the sudden din that had started as the dimension fell apart.

"Why?" Sakura demanded. Wouldn't it be in their best interest to stay _away_ from the big black hole instead of standing still like sitting ducks?

"Don't worry! The seal will work around us, but we _need_ to stand together!" Naruto tried not to flinch as the floor fell away a mere ten feet away from him. He wasn't sure if an endless fall would go over too well, even with his new powers.

Sakura was about to scream an argument at Naruto again when Sasuke interrupted. "Sakura! These are the sage's instructions. Either we trust them, or we perish! There are no alternatives!" Sakura looked from one determined boy to another. _'Crap!'_

"Alright!" she yelled, fighting to be heard over the deafening noise of a dimension being torn apart.

Sakura and Sasuke both stepped forward to Naruto and clasped his outstretched hands.

"Don't worry," he shouted. "The old man has everything under control!"

The ground vanished five feet away. Team Seven was now cut-off from the rest of the room.

"He'd better!" Sakura screamed menacingly.

"Just a bit more... NOW!"

Strange symbols glowed blue, etching themselves in both the remnants of the white room and the inky darkness that threatened to engulf it. It was the most intricate seal any of them had ever seen. Not even Jiraya or Orochimaru could come _close_ to the skill required for such a masterpiece. This was the work of a god among men. The Rikudō Sennin himself.

The room thrummed with latent power, even as it fell apart. Each piece was more than a piece of the wall, or a chunk of the floor. It was pure, solidified energy. Chakra at it's finest. The sage had explained as much to the trio after Sakura had gotten curious about the room. As the pieces broke away, they were absorbed into the blue etchings of the seal, fueling it with their power.

Eventually, only the chunk of floor holding Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke remained while the rest of the world was blue glowing in black. The noise stopped. Sasuke and Sakura looked to Naruto uncertainly. What now?

They were shocked to find Naruto in his Six-Paths Sage Mode. His eyelids were tinged with orange while his eyes were a liquid gold, highlighting his pitch-black horizontal pupils. Upturned light-blue semicircles rested on his cheekbones, just underneath his eyes while a similarly blue line slashed down his face from his forehead to his chin. He radiated power.

Then he spoke, with more voices than just his own, even as his face twisted into a feral grin. **_"Let's go wild!" _**And the world burst into light. A moment later, Team Seven was gone without a trace and the White Room which had endured for over two millennia faded out of existence into eternity.

**Author's Note****: Whoah, that took _way_ too long to write. Okay, recap: The sage's conscious is now sealed inside Naruto alongside Kurama, so Naruto can still talk to him if he needs to. Sakura has learned how to use the original ninjutsu, no-hands-style (I like the sound of that) which requires perfect chakra control to use. Sasuke cannot use his Rinnegan safely, but unlocking it has strengthened his eternal Mangekyō Sharingan. Naruto kinda already did his little training regime...**

**But on the plus side, Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura managed to give a semi-correct answer to the sage's question for peace: the Will of Fire. Placing their trust in the next generation to preserve the world.**

**Anyway. I've kept my promise. I'm within my timeframe _and_ they've finally time-travelled. You'll see the actual Shinobi Clan Wars in the next chapter.**

**I hope you like it!**

** Sincerely,**

** Duesal10**


	9. NOT A CHAPTER!

**Author's Note****: **

**I'm probably just going to fill this up with a bonus chapter later on when I get some inspiration.**

**My ideas so far:**

Sage of Six Paths VS Juubi

Senju Clan Ancestor VS Uchiha Clan Ancestor

Extra Fight Scenes Between Naruto and Sasuke

Fluff? No. Not Fluff.

Lore of the Gods (So maybe the story of creation)

The Sage meeting the gods

**Whatever. If you have a topic that you really want me to write about— it has to be one of these— feel free to PM me about it.**

**Sincerely,**

** Duesal10**


	10. Chapter 8: Trials

**Author's Note****: Hey guys! I know I've ticked off a lot of people by waiting this long, but I hope this chapter makes up for it. In here, I've actually tried to simulate the time-travel itself, so the chapter is a bit long...**

**Before I forget, thanks to you all for over 23,000 views! I'm so hyped!**

**I would like to personally thank the three people who beta-read this chapter for me:**

**E3-FantasyandReality, Lonely Athena, and Grace of Hearts. Thanks guys, you've all helped me so much!**

**Once again, thanks to everyone who's reviewed. You guys really don't know how much it helps me out. Thanks.**

**And be sure to check out my beta-reader's stories as well!**

**Also, I've been experimenting with different points of view. In my previous chapters, I've tried to use a third-person view. But in this chapter I've tried to use third-person limited. Let me know what you think!**

**Now, for the first time ever, you viewers get... a _KEY_! *crowd cheers wildly***

"Speaking,"

_'Thinking,'_

**"Bijuu/God/Possessed Individual Speaking,"**

The Clan Wars

Chapter Eight: Trials

They were falling. Naruto didn't know for how long or for how far, but he knew that they were falling. He could hear Sakura screaming profanities to his right, but he couldn't see her. That was the strange thing about time-travel; it was shrouded in absolute darkness, as though the gods didn't want mere mortals to see more than was necessary.

Sasuke's grip on Naruto's left hand suddenly shifted from bone-crushing to steel-crushing. For some reason, Sakura felt the need to do the same to his right hand. The Uzumaki fought the urge to wince, even though he knew that no one would see through the inky darkness that engulfed them.

"Naruto!" Sasuke shouted as he fought to be heard over the din. Sakura had suddenly gone quiet, which was strange since she had been screaming for _ages_. Something was very, very wrong.

"What!" Naruto screamed back, yelping slightly as Sakura's grip on his hand tightened even harder. Even in this pitch-black darkness, Naruto can practically see Sakura's snarl. But she's not the one speaking.

"There's something below us! I don't know what it is, but it's huge! The thing's chakra could rival Kurama's!" Sasuke shouts again.

Evidently, Sasuke had picked up a few sensory tricks from Karin. Naruto's blood went cold. _'Okay, this is bad. This is bad. Plans… Shit, I don't know what to do!'_

Turning his mind back to the present, Naruto replied, "Whatever you do, do _not_ let go!"

"What?" he heard Sakura's voice call faintly over the rushing air. It was funny really. He could hear _her_ just fine when she was screaming out her lungs.

"I _said_, DON'T let go! The old man and I won't be able to do anything if you fall out of the path! Who knows where you'll end up!" Naruto could practically hear the gears turning in Sakura's head.

"Dobe! Are you saying that if we let go of you, then we'll be dumped _randomly_ somewhere in the past?" Sasuke said, sounding rather miffed that this important detail hadn't been mentioned before.

The blond thought for a moment. "Pretty much" he confirmed.

"We still have a problem here!" Sakura said, while gripping Naruto's wrist with an excruciating amount of force. By the way Sasuke's grip on his left had tightened momentarily, Sakura was probably doing the same thing to him too.

"Sasuke! Does the Sharingan work yet?"

They had tried ever since the white room had disappeared. One moment, they were surrounded by white, and then the next engulfed them in darkness. It was a rather startling change, one that the three teens were not prepared for in the least.

Kurama and the Sennin had gone disturbingly silent throughout their descent, leaving Naruto to assume that the old man's sealing was far more taxing than he had originally thought.

Sasuke had tried to use his Sharingan to penetrate the eternal night that surrounded them, but his Sharingan wouldn't even activate. It was as though he had no power in this place…

"It's still not working!" Sasuke yelled.

Naruto snapped back to his thoughts as Sasuke shouted to make himself heard. Honestly, why did air have to be so _loud_? Even with his advanced healing as Kurama's jinchuuriki, he was sure that he would be left with a raw throat just from trying to hold a conversation.

Team Seven wasn't just falling. It was as if they were _tearing_ through the air, as if the wind itself wasn't fast enough to tear the fabric of time. So, if the wind wasn't fast enough, Team Seven just needed to be faster. The obvious effect of this method of travel was the _noise_. The incredibly loud, howling _noise_.

"We're about to impact!" Sasuke shouted in warning, his voice barely carrying over the ripping air.

No less than three seconds later, they hit. Whatever it was, it wasn't solid, because Team Seven plowed right through it like it was Jell-O. But that didn't stop the blob of a creature from trying to trap them anyway.

Naruto had no time to think. He had to keep his friends alive as they tore through the creature. They were all holding their breaths as hidden tendrils tried to grasp them as they fell. Fortunately, they were far too fast for the creature to catch them.

Several moments later, Team Seven passed through the barrier completely, even as the unknown monstrosity screamed its rage and pain above them. And then there was light.

OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoO

Suddenly, Naruto could _see_. Normally, this wouldn't be such a big accomplishment. However, considering that neither he nor his friends had been able to complete the seemingly simple task for an undetermined amount of time, he permitted himself a small moment of celebration.

"It's about time, dattebayō," he growled under his breath. Sasuke's and Sakura's forms were little more than vague blurs at his side now, but his vision was still adjusting after what seemed like days in absolute darkness.

Shaking his head, Naruto closed his eyes for a few more seconds, allowing his eyes more time to adjust to the sudden brilliance of his surroundings. When Naruto opened his eyes, his mind was blown.

'_W-What the… What is this?'_

Spread out below the descending trio was an enormous circle in a glaring contrast to the darkness that surrounded Naruto for so long. While it was mostly colored deep blue, there were splotches of white swirling above it as well as large green slabs protruding above over the blue. Its edges were a bright yellow, almost bordering on white, as though some great source of light was behind it.

Surrounding the circle though was that same infinite darkness from which Team Seven had come. However, unlike the total darkness in which they traveled, this darkness was peppered with tiny but bright luminescent circles.

"Wow," Naruto whispered to himself. At this point, the howling wind was on full-blast, so there was no chance of his teammates hearing him.

Despite the fact, it was then that Sasuke and Sakura chose to open their eyes. They were just as astonished if not more than Naruto.

Suddenly, that grating noise which had been batting at Naruto's eardrums for quite some time vanished even as a mysterious golden chakra bubble encased Team Seven.

"Naruto," Sakura shouted a bit too loudly. All three ninja winced at her volume in the wake of the sudden silence, which for some reason seemed even more unnatural than the noise had earlier on.

Sakura cleared her throat and spoke again, this time carefully regulating how loudly she spoke. "Sorry, force of habit." Sasuke and Naruto both grunted their dismissal, so she continued; "Sennin-sama's taught me about time-traveling theory."

Sasuke and Naruto frowned at each other. Neither of _them_ had received similar instruction.

"And?" Naruto prompted.

"Well, we may be _visited_," she said. "The gods will not let us pass unless we are deemed to be of worthy intentions. For now, Sennin-sama is protecting us with the last bits of his chakra, but stay alert! Look around!" she urged. "Any of this could be a test from the gods!"

Sasuke and Naruto shared a look and risked a glance at their surroundings to check. Looking below them, that enormous circle began to seem _very_ familiar with the wispy white streaks on top looking suspiciously like clouds.

As the golden chakra bubble drew Team Seven ever closer, the three ninja were able to differentiate variations in elevation. Huge crevices and jagged peaks scoured the surface of the circle.

However, what truly drew their attention was a comparatively small island in the middle of what seemed to be a world of blue.

"Hey, doesn't that look kinda like-," Naruto started pointing with his chin—as his hands were occupied—before Sakura caught sight of what he was seeing.

"I don't believe it," she breathed. "That's the Naka River! And right below it, the reddish block of stone! That's the Hokage Monument!"

Sasuke finally spotted what his teammates were seeing and froze for a moment. "I still can't activate the Sharingan, but—" he looked around, _truly_ looked for the first time. Stars shone around them, far brighter than they would anywhere on earth. There was only one place they could be. "I can say with confidence that below us is the world. We are beyond even the skies themselves."

Naruto and Sakura looked at his self-assured expression surprised. Sakura was a bit impressed that Sasuke had been able to come up with _that_ just because of a squiggly blue line that resembled a river that used to run through Konoha. Naruto however was a bit harder to convince.

"Oi, Sasuke! How do you know that! The entire world isn't that small!" Naruto exclaimed. "And what do you mean 'beyond the skies'? The sky is blue, isn't it? If we were really above the earth, shouldn't we be seeing blue everywhere?"

Sasuke sighed for a moment. Did Naruto really have to challenge him in _every_ little thing? Granted, Naruto was a capable commander in battle and a born strategist who kept the Shinobi Alliance alive for weeks longer than they should have lasted, even with his impulsiveness. But it was that very impulsiveness which got him into arguments sometimes, usually over things that he didn't understand.

"The old man said that we were just going through a portal! Even _he_ wouldn't just drop us out of the sky!" Naruto said, sounding almost as though he was trying to convince himself.

The raven blinked. So _that_ was it. It wasn't that Naruto didn't believe his theory about being above the world's atmosphere; it was that he was _afraid_ of it being true. The Uchiha heir risked a look down and had to fight off the urge to shiver. It was a _very_ long way down after all.

"Talk about a birds-eye view," he muttered.

Without warning, the golden chakra-ball holding Team Seven lurched to a stop, jerking its passengers violently.

Naruto and Sasuke looked a bit queasy, but otherwise they were fine. Sakura on the other hand was turning an unnatural shade of green.

"I think I'm going to vomit," she warned.

Sasuke groaned in exasperation. This was _just_ what they needed. Here they were, stuck in what appeared to be an airtight chakra ball with _no_ access to their chakra, several hundred thousand feet above the world, and Sakura felt the need to throw up.

Konoha's only whiskered blonde was slightly more vocal in his annoyance. "Can't you just hold it in?" he whined.

Sakura tried to glare at him, but ended up having to clamp her lips shut as she held back a gag. She settled for crushing his hand, which was conveniently placed in her own.

"Ghhh! S-Sakura chan! My hand, my hand! I need my hand! Sakura-chan!"

Sakura was forced to stop in her administration of Naruto's decidedly deserved torture when she felt another gag coming, along with foul taste of her stomach acids. Finally, when she couldn't hold it any more, she leaned her head forward and emptied the contents of her stomach in the roughly triangular space between the three of them.

Sasuke and Naruto both wrinkled their noses in slight disgust, but they at least had the decency to look worried about her health. All three teenagers were immensely relieved when the vomit slipped right through the golden chakra walls of the bubble, speeding towards the earth before burning up a mere three seconds later in the earth's atmosphere.

"**Kukukukuku!"** a feminine voice giggled out of nowhere. Sasuke tried to track the voice, but it was useless. It was like the voice was everywhere at once! If only he could use his Sharingan! **"To think that one of you mortals would actually suffer from motion-sickness after a ride that short. I guess that pathetic sage chose poorly after all!"**

A beautiful dark-haired woman suddenly materialized above the trio, just outside of their protective bubble. Her face was regal, with high cheekbones and slanting eyebrows. Her long, dark lustrous hair flowed down to her waist, complementing her glowing alabaster skin. She wore a beautiful silver kimono that shimmered with the slightest disturbance. But her most striking feature was her eyes. While she did not have a dōjutsu, her eyes were by no means normal. Where her eyes should have been were pure silvery orbs, completely unblemished with no pupils to speak of, yet somehow it was easy to tell what the woman was looking at.

"Tsukuyomi-sama, queen of the moon," Sasuke whispered reverently. "Naruto, Sakura. Bow before her." He bowed his to her head in deference and Naruto and Sakura followed suit, albeit reluctantly. They couldn't afford to be disrespectful to a goddess.

"**Oh? So one of you pathetic mortals **_**does**_** recognize me! Such weak-minded things, mortals." **Tsukuyomi ran a flawless porcelain hand across the surface of the chakra-bubble, only to snatch it back when the walls zapped her with tendrils of energy. Her delicate features twisted into a frightening sneer.

"**You pathetic sage! You who failed in your only task should have fallen to the Shinigami millennia ago! What right do you have to traverse the time-stream? No mortal, least of all **_**you**_** deserve it, oh **_**great Rikudō Sennin!**_**" **Tsukuyomi spat at the trio, glaring at Naruto in particular. Something told the ninja that it would have been a very different encounter had the chakra-bubble not been in Tsukuyomi's way.

Naruto was just about to bite out his own cheeky reply when he stiffened and his eyes glazed over. Sakura glanced anxiously at her blond teammate while Sasuke kept an eye on the angry goddess.

When Naruto snapped back to reality, his eyes were no longer clouded, his cerulean-blue gaze disturbingly sharp. After a few seconds of blinking around, Naruto focused his eyes upon the peeved moon-goddess once more. When he spoke, his voice sounded different, like multiple people.

"**Tsukuyomi-chan, is that any way to treat the man who created your home?"** he asked patiently. His voice was layered, as though two people were speaking at once. This first voice was Naruto's, that much was obvious. But the underlying voice... it sounded like the sage!

"Sennin-sama?" Sakura ventured. Naruto turned his head towards her momentarily and gave her a sharp nod of acknowledgment. She knew it! Sakura just hoped that a two thousand year-old ghost taking over her teammate's body would not be a regular occurrence. But more importantly, _'Sennin-sama calls a goddess _chan_!?'_

Then, turning back to the angry goddess, Naruto said, **"Now I don't know about you, but **_**I**_** really need to get going. Oh look, there's the moon!"**

Sure enough, a monstrously large sphere of rock and dust was in the distance behind Tsukuyomi.

"**Now while I'd **_**love**_** to keep you entertained, I'm sure that the servants in your palace could do a **_**much**_** better job than me."**

"**Mortal…"** Tsukuyomi growled in warning. Sasuke was sincerely hoping that the supposed moon goddess was fair in assigning blame when it came to judgment. He had nothing to do with the current situation!

"**That reminds me,"** Naruto/Rikudō Sennin continued.** "Where is your radiant sister Amaterasu? I haven't seen her in ages."**

To Sakura's and Sasuke's surprise, Tsukuyomi, who had looked like she wanted to kill them moments before, relaxed and actually smiled at them.

"**I've missed you, you old fool,"** she said fondly. **"My sister, as you should know, is on the other side of the world in that golden sun-palace of hers."**

Sasuke's mind was working on overtime. _'What just happened? One moment, she sounded like she hated the old man, and the next she greets him like an old friend!'_

To his surprise, the sage, using Naruto as a medium just laughed. **"It's good to see you, Tsukuyomi-chan! I've missed that attitude of yours!"**

Just as suddenly as she smiled, the moon goddess snarled at the sage.** "You have failed in your duty, little sage. Why should you be granted a second chance now?"**

Sasuke was having severe doubts about the goddess's sanity. _'Is she bipolar or something? The way she speaks… it is reminiscent of Sakura during her more unstable moments… She's as fluid in nature as the moon itself, ever-changing.'_

'Naruto' sighed. **"Tsukuyomi-chan, you of all people should know that there was nothing I could do. I was supposed to be **_**dead**_** when the world was destroyed. It is only because I hid from the Shinigami that the world has a chance to survive."**

The moon goddess sighed, her silver kimono fluttering in response to an unfelt gust of wind. **"Little sage. You were given one task. _One task_. And you couldn't even complete it! All that was required of you was to destroy the Juubi, but did you do it? No! You had to _wait_ for two millennia and destroy it _after_ it tore the world** **apart!"**

Naruto's features were twisted into a wince as the sage was reminded of his ultimate failure, the world's destruction. Everything that Tsukuyomi had said was true. He had failed in his divine duty, his only real task: destroying the monstrosity known as the Juubi. But just because he had failed didn't mean that the world deserved to perish! That was the reason that they were all doing this! Fortunately for him though, Tsukuyomi decided to give him a chance, reluctantly though she granted it.

**"Explain your intentions little sage. The gods will never allow you or your,"** the goddess paused to glance sparingly at Sasuke and Sakura, then finally noting Naruto's body which the sage was occupying, **"_companions_ to change the world as you see fit unless you present a _very_ convincing argument. You may now speak for an hour. Begin."**

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Naruto was very confused when he woke up. One moment, he was about to trash-talk a goddess for insulting the old man, and in the next, he saw black.

The blonde ninja groaned and opened his eyes, rubbing them to clear them of grime as he pushed himself off of the hard floor. Then he was interrupted in his task by a _very_ familiar voice.

"Naruto?" Said blonde's head snapped up at that voice, which for some reason seemed to be echoing. It couldn't be... Blinking first to clear his eyes once more, Naruto looked around desperately to find the source of that voice.

He was in his mindscape, but it seemed different somehow. Kurama's Six-Paths cage was still there with the demon fox himself slumbering behind the bars. The old man's sealing must have somehow worn him out as well. But even more unnerving than a sleeping bijuu, Naruto's mindscape no longer took the form of a sewer. Bit by bit—as it actually looked to be incomplete at the moment—it was taking on the form of a gigantic labyrinth. Was this the effect that the old man was having on his mindscape?

Huge walls of industrial bricks towered above Naruto's head by over two dozen feet. They seemed to be making a room around Kurama's cage with dozens of exits decorating its sides. But more importantly...

"Naruto?" Naruto whirled around to face the voice behind him. There was no way... His eyes were greeted with mop of shocking red hair and smiling ripple-eyes.

"_Nagato?!_" Naruto exclaimed incredulously. Indeed, Nagato, his sibling student—his _dead_ sibling student—was standing before him when there really was no way for their meeting to be possible. "What? _How?_ I thought that Itachi sealed you inside that gourd-thingy!"

Nagato sweatdropped at Naruto's description. "Do you mean the Sword of Totsuka?" Nagato inquired. Inwardly he sighed. Naruto never did pay much attention to the important details as much as he should have.

"Yeah, that's the one!" Naruto agreed enthusiastically. "The sealing sword! Man, I have _got_ to find that before Sasuke does this time around..." Naruto muttered that last part to himself, but Nagato still sweatdropped upon hearing it.

"This Sasuke you speak of," Nagato began, prompting Naruto to look up. "Is this Itachi's younger brother? Was he not hell-bent on destroying Konoha when we last met?"

"Not anymore!" Naruto chirped. To say that Nagato was shocked would be an understatement. That Uchiha boy had made his revenge on Itachi the sole purpose of his existence for the majority of his life. With Itachi gone and the truth of the Uchiha massacre revealed, Sasuke had unleashed his hatred on the Hidden Leaf, vowing to slaughter them all for how they had used his elder brother.

It was damn near impossible to change an Uchiha's mind. Nagato had learned that much when he found out how Itachi had remained secretly loyal to the hidden leaf for years, even becoming Konoha's spy in the Akatsuki. That known fact brought up a very valid question: how the hell did Sasuke change his mind?

Then Naruto shook his head like a wet dog, as if to clear it for the impending confusion. "What are you doing here?" he asked softly, once he had calmed his nerves.

Nagato smiled sadly. "What kind of a brother would I be if I didn't wish you farewell in your departure from our world? This will be our final meeting, Naruto."

Naruto's eyes widened. "Wait. Won't I see you again in the afterlife _after_ I kick the Juubi's ass?" He had a sickening feeling that he already knew what Nagato was going to say in reply. Nagato's sad smile didn't leave his face. Naruto took a deep breath and spoke again. "I will see you and everyone else again, _right_?"

"...No, you won't." A tear tickled down Naruto's cheek as Nagato answered. "You are traveling to another time. As such, when you ascend to the afterlife, you will go to _that_ world's afterlife, not your own." Naruto was suddenly finding it difficult to breathe.

"I'm so sorry Naruto. You will never again see the people whom you love in the afterlife, because in your new world, they never existed."

Naruto sank to his knees, struggling to catch his breath. Nagato knelt by his side in brotherly concern. "Naruto. You must accept this." The teenager ignored the redheaded man as he continued to hyperventilate.

_'Tou-chan. Kaa-chan.'_

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Sasuke didn't quite know what to think at the moment. Sure, it was incredibly creepy that his team's two thousand year-old sensei could seemingly possess Naruto at will. But creepier by far was the fact that Tsukuyomi— the revered moon goddess— had _that_ look in her eyes.

For a second, Sasuke almost lost it. That all-too-familiar glint: that was the gaze of the dreaded fangirl. The last Uchiha was so panicked at the horrifying discovery that he almost didn't notice the moon goddess _wasn't_ looking at him. She was looking at _Naruto_, or more specifically, the old ghost possessing Naruto.

Sasuke blinked. Tsukuyomi was just staring at Naruto/geezer-sensei (the name kind of stuck after Naruto had started calling him that). The Sennin, however, was too busy blabbing, using his hour for all it was worth to notice _that_ look in the goddess's silver eyes and the near predatory glances she kept shooting at him. The Uchiha teenager involuntarily shivered. Fangirls were the sort that needed to be noticed right away, because if they ever took you by surprise... He just hoped the chakra bubble would last the conversation.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

Sakura was getting rather annoyed. Okay, she was getting _really_ annoyed. She was still nauseated from her team's jerk of a stop, and when she was still recovering that bitch of a goddess _laughed_ at her! With anyone else, Sakura would have punched them through the ground and washed her hands of the situation. But unfortunately, she was too busy making sure that Naruto and Sasuke wouldn't just float away from her.

That was the strange thing about the bubble—not that a giant golden chakra-bubble wasn't strange—it was centered around Naruto, but for some reason, she and Sasuke just seemed to float around in it, as though gravity had no meaning. For this reason, they were forced to hold onto Naruto's body whilst the sage and Tsukuyomi conversed.

But worst of all was that this _goddess_ was actually threatening them! The conversation had started innocently enough, but Tsukuyomi quickly made it clear that she had little intention of letting them pass by unharmed and now the sage was desperately trying to convince her otherwise. Sakura absently listened in on bits and phrases of the argument as she seethed on her personal corner of the protective bubble.

**"—on't even deserve to—"** came the moon goddess's voice.

**"This isn't about me! This is about the fate of the—"** and Sakura's third sensei was cut off yet again by an irate Tsukuyomi. Sakura growled to herself at the fresh example of the moon goddess's lack of manners. She had—apparently naïvely—thought that the immortals would be a bit more eloquent. Tsukuyomi had sorely disabused her of that notion by laughing at her in her moment of discomfort.

**"Oh just _stop_ with your self-righteous rambling. That means noth—"**

**"_Self-righteous?_"** the ancient man growled, his voice a strange mixture of Naruto's voice and something far more bestial. Just hearing that voice sent chills up her spine.**"_Rambling? _I would have thought that Amaterasu-sama raised you better than that!"**

_'The sun empress?'_ Sakura turned her head to the feuding pair, now thoroughly intrigued with their proceedings. A quick, analyzing glance at Sasuke revealed a very tense, very pale, almost _scared__-looking_ Uchiha teen. What was up with him? But her former love-interest wasn't the most interesting thing in the bubble right now— so to speak.

Tsukuyomi's delicate features twisted in barely contained anger. **"Don't bring my sister into this!"** she hissed.

The sage ignored the command and Sakura absently wondered if the rather unstable-looking goddess in front of them would ignore the fact that Sennin-sama was possessing her teammate's body and attack him anyway.

**"But I must!"** he declared, subconsciously tightening Naruto's grip on her and Sasuke's hands. **"Amaterasu-sama would allow us to pass! She would put her faith in me! She would—"**

**"SHE _DID_!"** Tsukuyomi interrupted with a scream, her silver eyes practically molten with rage. Everyone froze. Sakura noticed that the Uchiha next to her was struggling to suppress his trembling. She couldn't blame him. With the murderous aura that the goddess was releasing, even _Sennin-sama_ was shaking slightly. No one but the sage notice the silver tear trickle down Tsukuyomi's left eye— they were all too focused on the enraged immortal herself.

**"She _did_ put her faith in you! We _all_ put our faith in you! We _trusted_ you! You betrayed us all and doomed the world to destruction once, and it will _NOT HAPPEN AGAIN!_"** Then, the ageless queen of the moon flipped in place and attacked with an axe-kick, bending the chakra-bubble like rubber to dangerous proportions. The bubble responded in kind to her violent assault and zapped her with a tendril of energy. At Tsukuyomi's yelp of pain, Sakura couldn't honestly say that she felt any sympathy for the goddess.

The timeless being backed away with a snarl, then she rushed forward again as the sage desperately pumped chakra into their barrier.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

"Naruto..."

"_No!_ I _refuse_ to accept that!" Nagato sighed. He couldn't blame the boy, not really. Being separated from those you loved in life was painful enough, but even in the _afterlife_? Such a thing was unimaginably cruel. But they just couldn't afford to waste time like this.

"Naruto," he said a bit more forcefully, placing his hand on the boy's shoulder for emphasis.

The blonde just ignored him and curled into himself on the floor, muttering to himself in an endless chant. "No, no, no, no, no."

Nagato watched for a moment, his joy at seeing his brother-of-sorts quickly transforming into disgust. This was not the one he had placed his trust in to bring peace to the world. This was _not_ the Child of Prophecy. This sniveling child whining before him was _not_ Jiraya-sensei's true heir! He grabbed the teen by the front of his jumpsuit and hoisted his body up above him.

"Naruto!" he screamed. The boy actually ignored him! Growling, Nagato shook the blonde Hokage-wannabe aggressively. "Snap out of it! _Now!_" After a few seconds, Nagato dropped his sibling-student in a disoriented heap.

Growling, Naruto shot up off of the floor in a few seconds. "Oi! What was that for?!" Nagato immediately punched Naruto in the jaw, sending him tumbling back to the ground.

Naruto rolled for a few seconds before stopping himself. When he shakily got up again, his eyes flashed scarlet red. He turned his head to the side and spat out a mouthful of blood. Nagato noticed the Kyuubi behind him stirring in its cage, but he ignored it in favor of the enraged youth in front of him.

"Teme," Naruto growled. Nagato narrowed his eyes; Naruto was definitely losing control of his emotions. Even though he was actually in control of the Kyuubi's chakra, in this hyperemotional state, he was still affected by the residual anger and pain that the tailed-beast had felt over the millennia. In short, Naruto was going berserk with rage and pain, both of his own and of the Kyuubi's.

Nagato forced chakra into his Rinnegan in preparation for a necessary confrontation. If Naruto was to save the world, then he needed to move past his losses. And as he was now, Naruto was no Child of Prophecy— he was just a boy who couldn't handle pain. But Nagato wouldn't let him remain like this. He would see Naruto rise to his destiny or die trying!

"No. NO! I RE**F**U**SE T**O** ACCEPT THIS!"** Naruto roared, scarlet eyes flashing ferociously. His nails lengthened into claws and his canines grew, almost bulging out of his mouth. The corrosive chakra of the Kyuubi started to bubble around his body like a cloak. Within moments, Naruto was on all fours with a single red tail waving behind him. The entire room started to tremble with the sheer magnitude of power, but Nagato had faced far worse than this. No matter what, he would force Naruto to rise to his destiny, because Naruto was the _true_ Child of Prophecy.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

**"Sasuke! Duck!"** Said Uchiha complied as that bitch of a moon goddess spin-kicked the chakra bubble again, this time almost to breaking point. Her foot passed millimeters away from Sasuke's head, but thankfully despite the forceful bending the bubble would not break. With another zap of golden chakra, she was forced back yet again.

Sasuke glared at the sage, who was desperately trying to maintain their protective golden barrier. "Why aren't we moving!" he demanded.

The sage grimaced with Naruto's face. It was an odd expression for Naruto, almost as if he had eaten a bad bowl of ramen...

**"That's it!"** shouted the Sennin, sounding thoroughly annoyed. **"I'm destroying the bubble!"**

Sasuke and Sakura both looked that the sage like he was crazy. "_What?!_" they screamed.

* * *

**And CUT!**

**Am I evil for not going straight to the wars? Hell yes! Obviously I'm evil for that cliffhanger, but hey! It made for a semi-decent action sequence. But I thought that the supernatural needed to make a few appearances first. Besides, certain things must take place for the story to make sense. *evil laughter in the distance***

**With Nagato, can he show Naruto the true path to peace, or will our favorite blonde hero forever lose his way?**

**But most importantly, will the rest of Team Seven and the Sage of Six Paths survive Tsukuyomi's assault?**

**Now, I've learned my lesson by now. I make no promises in regards to posting time!**

**But, in regards to the eventual time-travel, there is a poll on my profile. Vote!**


	11. Chapter 9: Darkness

**Author's Note****:** _First of all, a big thank you to all who have favorited, followed, and/or reviewed since my last 'acknowledgement'. I've been putting this off for so long, and I apologize for that. Now I'm responding to all reviews since chapter nine, so if you just want to read, you'll have to skip quite a bit._

_Also, a big thank you to Grace of Hearts and Lonely Athena for beta-ing this chapter. For all of you who don't know, Lonely Athena has actually translated the prologue and chapter 1 of this story into spanish, just in case you were interested. Check out both of their profiles!_

**Theunfunny9**— Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying the story!

**Kyong Kybis**— Thanks for the awesome review! Don't worry. Believe it or not, Team Seven actually _isn't_ overpowered. You'll find out what I mean soon enough.

**Infernezor**— I'm glad you liked my characterization of the Sage. In a response to your question: the white room amplifies every aspect of the sage's power, allowing him to preform feats that are otherwise impossible anywhere else. Bending time and reality (although he has a slight control over reality with Banbatsu Sōzo with his Rinnegan outside of the room) are thus possible for the sage when he's in the room.

**E3-FantasyandReality**— Thanks for the encouragement. Good luck with your story as well!

**LadyAngel123**— Yes, I'm sorry... I do agree that I completely screwed you over by waiting a month to post and _not_ finally initiating the time-travel, but I'm glad that you understand my reasoning. I have indeed initiated the time-travel. Enjoy!

**bon123**— 'Evil' you say? Yes indeed! Keep in mind that I'm a seventeen-year-old male who wastes quite a bit of time on violent video games. I'm also a big fan of George R. R. Martin's _A Song of Ice and Fire_ series in which he is totally fearless in killing off his main characters (or, short of that, his protagonists). Compared to my idol in writing, I actually consider myself to be quite mild...

**Lonely Athena**— Yes, the bubble is still protecting them, but it's also slowing them down. They're like sitting ducks for Tsukuyomi to swoop in on.

**krynny**— Thank you! I'm glad you appreciate my story!

**imsabbel**— Congratulations for being the only one to notice something off with the Naruto-Nagato scene. Keep in mind though, Naruto's rage wasn't due to his despair entirely. He's grown stronger than that...

**willam and jack and jake**— Thanks for reviewing every chapter! Yeah, I also thought that Sakura as a mistress of the elements would be really cool. But then I read the latest manga... I _think_ I'm going to let her have that power in my story, but I'm going to make her work for it. Otherwise, she'd be completely overpowered instead of only slightly overpowered.

**semaxx3**— So Naruto getting the power of a bijuu _and_ a new sage-mode isn't original enough? All right, it's ON! I'm taking that as a challenge to give Naruto some incredibly awesome—but at the same time believable—new ability!

**Leandryn**— Yeah... You're not the only one I've gotten that from. I promise you that I'll do my best to make the story move faster.

**shadowmarialove**— Thank you? I'm not so sure what was funny about the last chapter though... I think I kind of failed with Sasuke's POV. I'm glad you thought otherwise though!

**LimitedEternity**— Yes, they're being robbed of their afterlife as well. Sucks, I know. I'm actually quite surprised that I've never seen any other author of a time-travel story address who's present in the time-traveler's afterlife. It seemed a bit too important to ignore. And thanks! Giving Sakura elemental mastery was actually done on a random whim of mine.

**risen truth ruthless lies**— Thank you! Also, good luck with your new story!

**Battle neurosis**— Sorry for the cliffhanger, but at the time, that was literally all that I had written down. I don't exactly write ahead... I'm pretty sure my muse hates me.

**xdevil-childx**— Thanks! Enjoy with this chapter!

**suicune4ever**— I'm going to be upfront with you. No, Naruto will _never_ see his parents again. Yes, I'm being incredibly cruel to Naruto, but I want him to be real as a character. I want him to suffer so that you, as a reader, can empathize with him and cheer him on in the coming wars. So far, it looks like 'mission accomplished' to me. Don't worry though. I hate depressing stuff almost as much as you do. The atmosphere will get lighter soon enough.

**dayfox96**— *Smirks* Yes, cliffhangers are annoying, aren't they? I'll try not to do it too much.

**Kinunatzs**— You do realize that Naruto doesn't know any sealing right now. That'll change when he meets the Uzumaki. (Come on! Who honestly didn't see that coming?)

**Grace of Hearts**— Thanks Grace! I do try.

**Vicky Gonzal**— Thank you! I was going for an overall dramatic story.

**kkrar00**— Well, I'm updating now... I'm glad you like it!

**Guest**— Thanks! Updating as I type! :)

**daniel**— I pulled a Kishimoto? Yeah, I guess I did... I'll try not to do that anymore.

**PensiveProsperity**— Well, I'm glad that you like the story!

**Madararennigan**— Thankfully, my AP Exams are OVER! Updates might not be guaranteed though. I'm pretty much writing my story from scratch as no one has completely set the standard for a time-travel to the Clan Wars.

**MugetsuIchigo**— I feel ya. APs are like leeches with how they suck our lifeblood till we're dry.

**martian-general-bookworm**— Thanks! Me too!

**Indicud**— You have a good idea with Shippuden-like filler arcs, but I'm probably just going to do little flashbacks within each chapter instead of actual filler arcs.

**Mallari**— I actually had to go to a russian translation website for your review. So, in response: Спасибо за вашу поддержку!

**DarkinocensDLT**— Thanks! I did work hard to write this.

**fanfic drawer**— I'm glad you get that the training was entirely necessary to the story. It's all action from here on out! *whips out a katana from nowhere* Let's get this party started!

**FF-loverHP1**— Thank you.

**Namikaze-Uzumaki-Naruto**— Thanks!

**OregonDucks**— No, he won't. I'm making the chakra-chains for the Uzumaki a specifically _feminine_ power. He will learn their sealing though.

**ElementalKitsune**— To be honest, I have NO idea how I'm going to portray this. It'll be like writing my own book— a daunting task to say the least. Thanks for the compliment!

**thekidwhohastoas**— Yes, I could, but I'm not going to. (props to you for seeing that hidden potential though) In my mind, the sage is a bit too proficient at sealing to mess up that badly.

**XT3100**— The age-old question of peace... I think I could have done better, but I appreciate the encouragement. And while you may think so, I'm not ready to write my own book just yet.

**Lightning X678**— Don't worry, I didn't overpower them.

**RefleR**— Fine... *grumbles* I _guess_ I'll stop.

**igotmoneymoney**—Thank you!

**yukina-kun**— I promise you I won't abandon this story.

**Killijimaru**— I'm glad you think so.

**SilverIcy**— *looks proud of himself* Thank you! I paid extra-special attention to my action scenes.

**Dimension Distorter**— They're not gonna make ripples in the time-stream, they're gonna cause a freaking tsunami. It's gonna be sweeet!

**bostafu**—Yes, Naruto _does_ have enough insane abilities already. I'm glad you can see that.

**Unknown Shinobi**— Finals are over and I'm typing away. Enjoy!

**Anbu Codename-Kuro**— ^_^

* * *

The Clan Wars

Chapter 9: Darkness

_**"Sasuke! Duck!"** Said Uchiha complied as that bitch of a moon goddess spin-kicked the chakra bubble again, this time almost to its breaking point. Her foot passed millimeters away from Sasuke's head, but thankfully despite the forceful bending the bubble would not break. With another zap of golden chakra, she was forced back yet again._

_Sasuke glared at the sage, who was desperately trying to maintain their protective golden barrier. "Why aren't we moving!" he demanded._

_The sage grimaced with Naruto's face. It was an odd expression for Naruto, almost as if he had eaten a bad bowl of ramen..._

_**"That's it!"** shouted the Sennin, sounding thoroughly annoyed. **"I'm destroying the bubble!"**_

_Sasuke and Sakura both looked at the sage like he was crazy. "_What?!_" they screamed._

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

* * *

Nagato was having a very bad day. He had been perfectly content in the afterlife. Sure, he was alone in that accursed gourd, but he had all these wonderful _dreams_. Dreams about things like being with Konan, Yahiko, and Jiraya-sensei, just like old times. Dreams of a world in which his parents never died. Dreams of a world in which war never existed, where there was no need for shinobi. But most of all, fleeting images of _true_ peace. Of course, he of all people knew that the good things never lasted, not even in death.

Somehow, the Shinigami himself had managed to pry his very soul out from inside the confines of the Sword of Totsuka. Why? Because the Death God needed him to deal with a certain blond jinchuuriki (no direct divine interference and all). And for the millionth time in his existence, Nagato wondered why the world couldn't just save itself.

Now here he was standing in front of a Kyuubified Naruto, wondering how he could force his demonic junior to accept his destiny as the savior of the world—as the true Child of Prophecy—_without_ having his own vulnerable soul torn to shreds.

The red-haired Uzumaki descendent was ripped from his thoughts when a one-tailed Naruto barreled past him, leaving wisps of that corrosive red chakra in his wake. Nagato was barely able to avoid him, using his Rinnegan for all it was worth to twist out of Naruto's way at the last possible moment. Damn, that boy was fast! His speed had increased to the point where he was nearly a blur when he moved!

"Naruto! Snap out of it!" Nagato pleaded, turning to face the blond behind him. Having his fellow disciple slaughter him in a berserker rage would most certainly _not_ guide Naruto down the path towards true peace. Unfortunately, the rampaging Uzumaki paid him no heed and attacked with a clawed-swipe to his head. Nagato ducked with a frustrated growl and shoved his open palms into Naruto's unprotected chest.

"Shinra Tensei!"

The former Akatsuki member saw and felt everything in slow motion. First a shock-wave originated from his palms and radiated around Naruto's body. The laws of physics unravelled and gravity faded to a mere memory. It lingered for a moment before it blasted the Jinchuuriki clear across his own mindscape, slamming his body into one of the walls next to the Kyuubi's cage before peeling him off and dropping him to the ground with an audible thud.

As he stood there watching, Nagato could feel his Rinnegan tugging for energy—for a near unrestricted access to his chakra. If he were he alive, his use of the dōjutsu would have drained his body of all vitality without reserve, leaving him emaciated and weak: a shadow man he once was. But now, he was dead, and the ripple-eyes feasted upon the raw power of his pure soul. Death had _freed_ him of his physical constraints.

He watched carefully as Naruto pushed himself up off of the ground. The Nine-tails was stirring in his cage next to him, but Nagato just ignored it. He knew that the beast wouldn't be able to interfere, even if it was so inclined. The Eight-Trigrams Seal on the door of the cage was virtually unbreakable—especially from the inside—unless one had the key. Although he knew that Naruto had somehow obtained the key due to his use of that strange golden chakra in their last battle, the boy was in no state to be able to use it now.

Naruto threw back his head and roared his fury, showing off his elongated canines in the process. **"Uuoooaaaaaahh!"** The very ground trembled at the bestial sound and a small shock-wave played at Nagato's hair, forcing him to squint his eyes.

The Rinnegan bearer flinched despite himself. He had faced Naruto in his rampaging nine-tails state an very nearly prevailed, but something just felt _off_ about his transformation this time, even though Naruto was only in his one-tailed state. His very aura felt darker—even _more_ malevolent than the last time.

It shouldn't have even been possible for Naruto to lose control of the Kyuubi's chakra in the way that he had and yet, when Jiraya's younger student learned of his separation from those he loved even in _death_, he was pushed over the edge in absolute rage.

No, Naruto was the man who stood in front of his sensei's murderer and _forgiven him._ For anyone else, it would have been virtually impossible to ignore their entire body practically screaming for revenge the way he _knew_ that Naruto's was. Jiraya-sensei's last disciple would not lose control like this, not for _anything_. Something else was definitely at work here. But no matter what it was Nagato would find it, and _crush _it!

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

* * *

"Are you _crazy!?"_ Sakura shrieked. Sasuke had to admit to himself, his banshee-of-a-teammate had a point. After all, what kind of an idiot would throw away their only form of protection against an insane rampaging goddess? Said goddess was gone for the moment—probably to lick her wounds—but she would definitely be back to stop them.

The ancient sage twisted Naruto's features into a wide, beaming grin. **"Have been for a long time Sakura-chan! After all, you'd have to be _completely_ insane to ever think up chakra theory!"** Sakura glowered at Naruto's face, which were still twisted into a mocking grin. She didn't seem to be reassured at all, and for that matter, neither was Sasuke.

"... But can't you _see_ it?" Sasuke felt the need to point out.

Naruto's eyes blinked a few times in confusion. **"Yes, but—"**

"So wouldn't the ability to see chakra make it _significantly_ easier to grasp the concept?"

And thus, Naruto's facial features contorted into a pout. **"Little brat! Taking away my thunder!"** he muttered under his breath. Then, they all heard a strange whooshing noise. Almost immediately, Naruto's eyes sharpened and all playfulness evaporated as the sage tensed the body under his possession. Then the moon started to glow, almost trembling with latent power. _'Shit!'_

**"Brace yourselves,"** he ordered.** "Tsukuyomi-chan's coming back."**

Sasuke bit back a curse. Why wouldn't that insane immortal just get out of their way? Did she _want_ the world to explode again? The Uchiha clan had always paid their respects to Tsukuyomi, the moon goddess. But now, Sasuke was starting to have daydreams of testing his sword on her... Could a goddess even bleed?

Off to the side in their protective bubble, Sakura was still unconvinced of her relative safety. "YOU'D BETTER NOT BREAK THE BUBBLE!" she screamed. Sasuke innocently pondered the possibilities of Sakura shouting the goddess to death, but immediately stiffened as said woman turned a death-glare on him. The Uchiha sincerely hoped that she had not picked up mind-reading from anyone. That would just be troublesome...

The sage was unperturbed. **"This is our only option. I have all but exhausted my strength with the seal."** Naruto's head turned as the oldest man alive looked at the horror-struck medic clasped to his arm. He offered her a sad but reassuring smile. Then turning to the Uchiha on his other side he said, **"I'm sending you two down first. Naruto and I will follow after I deal with Tsukuyomi-chan."**

Sasuke was hesitant, despite the obvious confidence the sage projected. "I should stay with you," he decided. Sakura didn't agree. "No way! I am _not_ going to leave everyone behind! I'm also stayi—"

**"ENOUGH! Both of you _will_ obey me because there is more at stake here than your own petty rules of never leaving a comrade behind! When the barrier is dismantled, the two of you _will _go on without me and Naruto,"** Naruto's eyes turned icy-blue, **"because the world comes first! Only we can prepare for the coming storm."**

The sage was at a standoff with his two students for a moment, daring them to challenge him. Eventually Sasuke gritted his teeth and bowed his head in defeat. "It shall be as you say, Sennin-sama," he ground out, obviously not liking the fact. What about Naruto? It was _his_ body that the sage had commandeered after all. The sage looked solemly at the Uchiha for a moment, seemingly answering his questions with his determined gaze. Then he turned towards Sakura whose viridian eyes were getting watery.

"Hai, Sennin-sama," she finally replied with a wavering voice. This really wasn't fair to her. Hell, it wasn't fair to _any_ of them, but it needed to be done. Then the rosette engulfed the sage in a hug, surprising him.

"You'd better be right behind us with Naruto and Kurama!" she whispered fiercely into his ear. The God of Shinobi just smiled warmly. In many ways, Sakura was like a mother to the rest of the group. This was just her showing her protective side. **"I'll do my best,"** he whispered back, returning her embrace.

Then the Sennin pushed Sakura and Sasuke away from him. The two ninja floated apart for a moment before latching their fingers onto each other's arms. Blue stared into black and green unflinchingly. Then the sage slammed his closed fists together in front of him. **"KEKKAI!"** he roared, channelling staggering amounts of chakra through his fists.

A wall of golden chakra rapidly formed within the bubble, separating the sage and Naruto from Sasuke and Sakura. Then a strange new barrier started shimmering in blue around Sakura and Sasuke, flickering in and out of existence with the pulse of a heatbeat. With a final push, the Uchiha and the medic broke off into their own bubble and floated away.

The Sage of Six Paths watched for a moment before turning towards the rapidly approaching threat. Tsukuyomi would never harm them! He would destroy her before he allowed that to happen, old friend or not. No one touches _his_ kids. She would not _pass!_

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

* * *

Nagato vaulted up by a good dozen feet, barely dodging another one of Naruto's strikes, which in turn caused the jinchuuriki's clawed-hand to completely demolish the wall that had been behind him. The former Rain-shinobi had to admit, this was getting rather difficult. Not only was Naruto steadily getting stronger and faster—despite remaining exclusively in his one-tailed form—but the Rinnegan-bearer was starting to sense the presence of something absolutely _foul_.

The only one who had ever induced in him anything _close_ to this sensation before had been that one-eyed shinobi whom he knew as Madara Uchiha, the man who would rule the world. But even _he_ paled in comparison to the sheer malevolence that this presence radiated. This felt like an evil beyond the capacity of any mere mortal.

The red-head landed lightly on the balls of his feet, warily eyeing the Kyuubified Naruto—although he wasn't entirely sure that the blond's current state was solely due to the Nine-tails anymore—as the demonic boy wrenched his hand from the pile of rubble that use to be a rather impressively-built wall.

That was something else that surprised Nagato. He hadn't expected Naruto's mind to appear so... _sophisticated_. Surrounding the Kyuubi's gigantic cage was an even more enormous labyrinth, the complexity of which Nagato couldn't even begin to grasp.

While he had the upmost faith in Naruto as his fellow disciple, Nagato would freely admit that Naruto wasn't the brightest kid he had ever met. _That_ title belonged to one Itachi Uchiha. Almost in a direct contrast, his blond junior was brash, impulsive, and incredibly blunt. No, sadly Naruto was _not_ the sharpest kunai in the pouch.

That said, it wasn't as if Naruto didn't have any natural talent at all; he was a shinobi graced with what was probably the largest untapped natural reserve of chakra on the planet! However, Nagato knew that the blond wasn't _entirely_ dependent on his monstrously, practically bijuu-level chakra reserves. According to his operatives in the Hidden Leaf Village, the kid had actually managed to master the Shadow Clone—a _jōnin_-level technique—when he was a snotty-nosed student of the Academy in a mere few hours!

That same boy had even managed to surpass Jiraya-sensei, astonishingly succeeding where the Toad-Sage, one of the Legendary Three, had failed by achieving a perfect Sage-Mode. Hell, the kid had even managed to beat not only the Six Paths of Pain single-handedly, but he had even managed to survive a battle against the true Pain!

While it was true that sometimes Naruto wouldn't be able to grasp a concept immediately, he had an unnerving knack for achieving the impossible. It was almost like his mind worked in reverse, allowing him to grasp unbelievably difficult concepts—such as the shadow-clone jutsu and sage-mode—while completely screwing him over on things as simple as a basic clone jutsu or rudimentary Algebra. Now though, he just hoped that the rampaging Leaf shinobi could use that hidden talent of his to somehow break away from that suffocating fury that enveloped him.

Nagato froze as an incredibly cold sensation suddenly overtook him. He watched warily as the rampaging jinchuuriki in front of him finally ripped his arm from the rubble and rose to his feet. Then Naruto turned around. Nagato was stunned. _'H-His eyes! What's wrong with his eyes?!'_

Naruto's eyes were no longer that piercing cerulean-blue that they once were, or even the scarlet-red of the Kyuubi. They didn't even boast the burnished-gold of sage-mode. No... Now they were completely black. A void.

Soulless.

"Naruto... What's _happening_ to you?" Nagato asked, despairing that he really had no idea what course of action to take. Was that dark presence he felt really controlling Naruto, the shinobi with the indomitable will?

The blond just snarled at his question, flashing his impressively long fangs in the process. Sighing internally, the reserructed Rain-Shinobi leaned into his defensive crouch; he really couldn't afford to take any chances now. If he was defeated here, his very _existence_ would be compromised.

With a petrifying roar, Naruto attacked in a burst of speed, slashing and pummeling anything that got in between him and his prey. As a man, Nagato had been rather gravely injured during his confrontation with Hanzō and those damnable Root Anbu of Konoha, an explosion rendering his legs nearly useless.

But as a _soul_, Nagato could move like the wind, as if his injury was just a bad dream. He ducked and weaved in and out of Naruto's attacks like they were nothing, never once letting the blond touch him, but also never moving out of range. He _wanted_ to keep Naruto occupied by fighting him because the longer Naruto was busy, the more time Nagato had to figure out whatever the hell was going on. Then he could save Naruto from that corrupting darkness defiling his very soul.

That was what Nagato was fighting right now: Naruto's soul. After all, what else _could_ exist inside of his mindscape aside from his mind and soul? Well, besides the Kyuubi of course. Now all the redhead had to do was make sure he didn't injure Naruto too much; he wasn't entirely sure that a soul could heal like a body could.

Naruto then made the mistake of overextending his reach in one of his clawed thrusts, barely missing his intended target as the redhead twisted out of the way. The former Akatsuki member immediately grabbed Naruto's forearm in his ironclad grip, absolutely refusing to let go. Naruto struggled like a beast, clawing, kicking and biting. But Nagato dodged his junior's attempts at release like they were the attacks of a Genin fresh out of the Academy.

It was far to easy to predict Naruto's movements when he was in this state; he moved like an animal and he appeared to think like one as well. That said, Naruto also had the overwhelming physical strength of the Kyuubi at his disposal, and Nagato was having quite the time trying to maintain his grip without getting his guts spilled across the floor.

**"Rrraaaaaahhhhh!"** Nagato flinched at the unexpected roar, and that proved to be a nearly fatal mistake. Naruto slipped in past his guard and drove his chakra-laden fist deep into his gut. The Rinnegan bearer was immediately immobilized by the crippling pain; it was like his organs were being rearranged and shredded at the same time! Naruto remained in that position for a moment, seemingly enjoying the stunned pain playing across his opponent's face. He grinned savagely.

_'D-Damn! Just one punch... Such power!' _Then Nagato coughed up his own blood as the blond jinchuuriki slowly withdrew his fist and cocked it in preparation for yet another blow. But Nagato never let go of the blond's arm. He would save Naruto! He would—

Without warning, a fist collided into Naruto's face, practically rearranging the bone-structure before sending him crashing headfirst through a wall. From the sounds of it, the blond must have demolished several more walls in his involuntary flight before he finally rolled to a stop out of sight. Nagato shakily looked up at his rescuer from where Naruto had dropped him.

He didn't really know what to think. On one hand, he had definitely needed the help, but whoever this was had been utterly ruthless in dealing with his fellow disciple. Nagato didn't want to _kill_ Naruto! But once he finally managed to look up, he froze. There was no way... This just wasn't possible...

A giant of a man garbed in green with a red vest stood poised protectively over Nagato, as if he feared that the jinchuuriki could recover from that punch like it was nothing. Wild white, spiky hair was tied back into a ponytail that dropped down to the man's waist. White hair...

"J-Jiraya-sensei," Nagato whispered, as if saying his name any louder would make him disappear.

Jiraya, Toad Sage of the Dentetsu no Sannin was back from the dead.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

* * *

The Sage of Six Paths was once hailed as the Savior: leader of all mankind. He was the ripple-eyed hero who defeated the monstrous Juubi, the man who guarded the Power of Creation, a man blessed by the gods themselves. That is, until his death.

After his death, he was the sole cause of the Shinobi Clan Wars, the world's greatest series of wars in all of history. With a few words, the Rikudō Sennin had burned that fragile peace he had so painstakingly built over the course of his lifetime to the ground. His last words doomed the world to the chaos of war, and it's eventual annihilation. But that was only one of the reasons that the gods no longer supported him. Only one of the reasons they now hunted him.

The other reason was the Juubi, the great Ten-Tailed beast of destruction: his greatest mistake. Combining their very essence, the Council of the Gods blessed the man who would become the Sage of Six Paths with two priceless treasures, all to be able to combat and eventually destroy the Ten-Tailed Beast. The first boon they granted involved his mortal body. He was, after all, merely a mortal. Together, the gods poured their essence into his body, improving and rebuilding every cell until he was no longer entirely human.

They unmade his mortal container, stripping his very soul bare of the weak flesh, blood and bone that once sheathed it. Then they coated his vulnerable being with their essence, their power, enhancing his body in their own image, making him the world's first demigod.

He was stronger, faster, smarter. Every bone was tougher, every muscle far more adroit. Even his skin became virtually impenetrable. He was the perfect weapon, but his soul remained that of a mortal. After all, only mortals were permitted to directly interfere with worldly affairs.

The second divine treasure that the immortals gifted to the man was his eyes—his body alone would never have been enough to prevail over that rampaging beast. The priest's transformed body would only allow him to _survive_ the beast's onslaught. His eyes however would let him _dominate_ it.

The Juubi was a monster able to use a strange form of life-energy called "chakra" in absurd amounts. Every human had a miniscule amount which they carried with them throughout their lives, and even the gods carried this very same energy within them, although in far greater amounts than the mortals. To destroy the Juubi, the Gods dictated that the mortal before them needed to be able to sense this life-energy; so they altered his eyes.

The eyes of heaven, the orbs which held the Secrets of Creation. The Rinnegan, eyes of the Six Paths. It was in these eyes that the gods transfered a portion of their true powers. It was the Rinnegan that made the man an ascended being, one of the few creatures besides the gods themselves that could hope to destroy the Juubi. With the ripple-eyes of the Heavens, he had the power to once and for all annihilate the rampaging monster!

Except that he didn't.

The mortal prevailed in his final confrontation with the beast, both of them nearly collapsing after weeks of continuous battle. But in the end, that... that _human_ went back on the oath he swore. Instead of erasing the monster from the plane of Creation as he was charged, he took it upon himself to _split it_, tearing its gargantuan life-force from its body and dividing it. That which was once one great being was split into nine: the nine tailed-beasts. He called them his 'children' and treated them as such. Blasphemy! He even _preserved_ the Juubi's body by sealing it in a floating sphere of rock!

The actions taken by the Sage of Six Paths were nothing short of treason to the Divine Council.

But the gods could not do anything against him—they were forbidden from interfering directly in the mortal world. So they waited; they waited patiently for his death, for his deliciously mortal soul to come into their grasp. But the man disappointed them even in _that_ regard.

Shortly following his death, the man's soul did not follow the path that all human souls followed. No, he had the _audacity_ to defy his fate. The soul of the man whom the mortals knew as the great Rikudō Sennin fled into a dimension of his own design, escaping the wrath of the gods. And so they waited.

Now though, Tsukuyomi had her chance! She would crush this pathetic human soul that had betrayed them all! She would _obliterate_ him, even if he _was_ once her only love. Because she was a goddess, above petty emotions such as sentimentality.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

* * *

The Sage of Six Paths watched sadly as two of the teenagers under his care floated down towards the earth. He knew they would be fine, those kids knew how to take care of themselves, but he still couldn't help but feel a bit of fatherly concern. Would their landing be fine? Would the bubble burn up in the atmosphere? How would they _find_ him again? But the ancient man had faith. Those two were two of his successors; they could handle whatever this would had to throw at them. They would be alright.

He was interrupted from his thoughts as the moon started to change color. That sphere of rock which once glowed a lovely ivory color rapidly deteriorated to an angry blood-red. The sage suddenly realized that the earth was completely blocking the sun's light. But without the sun...

**"ARE YOU _READY,_ SENNIN_-SAMA?!_"**

By the gods...

Without the sun, Tsukuyomi had nothing to keep herself restrained. It was only under Amaterasu-sama's watchful eye that Tsukuyomi obeyed the Divine Mandates. Without her... But the again, who was _he_ to criticize for disobeying the rules?

Through Naruto's eyes, the sage watched as the moon goddess flew towards him at a frightening pace. Her expression was absolutely sadistic, the kind of visage one would expect to see on the face of a serial killer. She was totally _insane_. There was a very real reason that humans attributed madness to the moon. Not because it housed the body of the greatest demon in all of creation, but because its guardian was the very difinition of bipolar.

There were suspicions, just rumors really, that the goddess alternated between different aspects, her relative sanity directly correlating with the phases of the moon. The fuller the moon was, the more... _stable_ she was, as if Amaterasu-sama's reflected sunlight helped to calm her. But now, there was a bloody _lunar eclipse_, an even worse time than the new moon! A time in which Tsukuyomi went absolutely mad with bloodlust.

The night of the red moon.

Like a wraith out of the darkness, the goddess materialized in front of the sage's bubble. **"I _really_ don't like this mortal skin you're wearing, little sage,"** Tsukuyomi whined with a pout, her lip puffing out slightly. Her expression might have even been cute if that look in her eyes wasn't so damn terrifying.** "The old you was _so_ much _handsomer_!"** she purred seductively as she tauntingly floated in circles around him.

Her physical appearance was disturbingly different now, seemingly celebrating the color red. Tsukuyomi's long hair, which was once a glossy black, had transformed to a sickly red. Her eyes weren't that much better off. Those silverly orbs were... tainted. There was no other word to describe it. Her eyes—formerly unblemished silvery perfection—were now invaded by swirls of red and black.

In a way, it was fascinating to watch as the colors battled for supremacy what he assumed to be her pupils, but to his dismay, the silver was losing. The madness was taking its hold, rooting itself firmly in her mind. Even her once beautiful silvery kimono was defiled, spattered with red in patterns that looked suspiciously like the spray of blood. The Sennin sighed to himself. Why couldn't anything be easy?

Looking the goddess in the eyes, he said, **"Our discussion is _over_, Tsukuyomi. We are passing with or without your**** permission!"**

**"Awww! Call me _chan_!"** she whined, totally disregarding the fact that the object of her attention was glaring daggers at her.

The sage's stony expression never left Naruto's face. **"I think not! Now _move_!"**

She lifted her eyebrows at that, rather surprised at his blatant disobedience. Even when he was alive, the little sage had never openly defied the gods. His splitting of the Juubi had been unauthorized, but the man had been prudent enough not to disobey them to their _faces_.

The only reason he had managed to create the abominations known as the Tailed-Beasts was because the Council had forbidden direct divine intervention on Earth. Otherwise, he would have been stopped immediately and his soul banished to the deepest pits of Hell for his treachery. Yes, he was always a careful and calculating man. So why was he suddenly throwing his caution to the wind?

Contrary to popular belief, whenever Tsukuyomi had her... _episodes_, she retained every iota of her natural—or rather, _divine—_intelligence. In many ways, she could actually be considered brighter during her more eccentric states of mind simply because her mind worked differently.

Her critical thinking and problem-solving were completely rearranged, processing in revolutionary ways that no one else could ever begin to imagine. Although, she didn't really need any of her warped brain-capacity to notice that the other two mortal worms weren't with the little sage. Any idiot could've seen that!

**"You know,"** she began mockingly, dancing near the edge of the barrier's attack range, playing with it as she darted in and back out again. **"I bet _I_ could get to them before _you_ could."**

The color fled from Naruto's face, leaving his skin an unnatural pallor of white. **"You wouldn't dare!"** the sage whispered harshly.

**"Oh?" **Tsukuyomi responded, her mouth curving up with a vicious smile. **"But you _know_ that I would."**

Suddenly, the goddess darted around him, placing herself between the bubble and that blue-green planet. Turning around momentarily, she grinned in all her savage glory. **"Don't worry little sage. I leave their parts for you to bury!"** And she sped off towards the planet where she assumed the other two mortals were heading. She was going to have so much fun!

The sage was at her heels in an instant. He roared, **"_TSUKUYOMI!_"**

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

* * *

"Jiraya-sensei?" Nagato whispered again. Even in the afterlife before Itachi had sealed him in the Sword of Totsuka, Nagato had never seen the man. In fact, Nagato didn't see _anyone_ in the afterlife. He knew exactly why, though: he was being punished. He was in his own personal hell of solitude, a place with only his thoughts to echo around in his mind. What else would suffice for living as a harbinger of war and destruction? He could handle any kind of torture, but solitude was its own kind of hell.

For over a year his soul had wandered in that eternal night, a night devoid of even the faintest stars. A barren field of rock and dust loomed before him, never ending, never changing. Darkness reigned in this strange land. But then came that pull, that _tugging_ that latched on to his very soul, giving him no choice but to comply. That was when he was resurrected alongside Itachi Uchiha, all to capture a certain blond jinchuuriki.

As outlandish as the entire situation had been at the time, Nagato knew that it was entirely plausible. He had made sure to do quite a bit of research on Orochimaru before allowing that snake anywhere near the Akatsuki. If the Edo-Tensei had been perfected by him, who was to say that no one had taken advantage of his research after his death? He wasn't entirely certain, but his money was on that spectacled bastard that always hovered near the snake.

Shortly after his latest interaction with the world of the living, he was torn from the mortal plane yet again, but this time he had been _sealed_, potentially forever. But at least that gourd was more comfortable than that eternal night, blessing him with those shifting dreams. And then the Shinigami, Lord of Death and of the Dead, had pried his soul from the Sword of Totsuka and demanded that Nagato be of service to him. Not being in any position to object, Nagato relented and followed the Shinigami's orders. Apparently, the Death God viewed Naruto's mission as vital to the continuation to the great flow of life and had sent Nagato to explain to Naruto his... _circumstances_.

When Naruto didn't take the news as well as he had hoped, the Shinigami had thankfully sent Nagato a backup: Jiraya-sensei. The former Akatsuki puppet-leader could practically feel the power of the Lord of the Dead oozing from his former sensei. It wasn't chakra though, it was a far subtler power. It was almost as if this new aura that Jiraya-sensei was releasing wasn't entirely that of a mortal soul. The white-haired man before him burned with the power of the dead, the power of the Shinigami.

Jiraya never even turned around, ever vigilant as he scanned the walls that he had punched Naruto through. "Nagato, get up," he barked, the command in his voice made obvious by his harsh tone. Nagato immediately pushed himself off of the floor, wincing as the pain Naruto's fist had caused shot up throughout his abdomen. Damn, why was Naruto suddenly so powerful? What was with those ebony eyes of his? No... ebony was shiny. Naruto's eyes were more like the complete absence of color.

His eyes were a void.

"Did the Shinigami send you too?" Nagato questioned. He didn't see any other way another dead man could show up in Naruto's mindscape. Not only that, but Jiraya-sensei reeked of the Shinigami's chakra, as if the god had kept him by his side. All in all, Nagato was really just looking for an excuse to talk.

"Yeah," Jiraya answered simply, his white spiky hair shifting in an unfelt breeze. "He thought you'd run into something that you couldn't handle." The Sannin risked a glance behind himself, where Nagato stood with shaky feet. "Looks like he was right."

"Don't be ridiculous," Nagato scoffed after an uncomfortable silence. "I can handle Naruto!" That was a blatant lie; nothing could really _handle_ Naruto, but Nagato didn't want the conversation to end with just a few spoken sentences. He'd longed to see his sensei ever since he had died in his resurrection of most of Konoha, and maybe even before then. He just felt so _guilty _and he didn't know if he could ever apologize for what he did. In this instance, peace between them seemed impossible.

"That wasn't Naruto," Jiraya responded, almost offhandedly. The man seemed to either be oblivious to or ignoring Nagato's blundering attempts at a conversation, only responding with short and precise answers.

"... Come again?" Nagato was fairly certain that his rampaging opponent was indeed Uzumaki Naruto. Blond hair? Check. Whiskered cheeks? Check. Blue eyes? Check. Well, no. Not _blue_ eyes, but they used to be blue. So yes, that was an affirmative. Nagato was interrupted in his mental check-list when Jiraya decided to respond in earnest.

"You heard me. That wasn't Naruto at all. He's being controlled. And by the way," Jiraya said, now turning fully to face his former student, "who did _you_ in? Last I checked, you were the most powerful ninja alive. Head of the Akatsuki at that!" The Toad Sage's voice turned hard at the end, causing Nagato to look at the floor guiltily.

"So you haven't forgiven me then?" he murmured. He didn't really expect Jiraya to forgive a man like him, a murderer. He'd just always hoped. At least he knew now.

Jiraya turned back around towards the gaping hole in the wall. "It was never about forgiving you, Nagato." Nagato looked down at the floor in shame. So he really was unforgivable. So much that forgiving him wasn't even an option for Jiraya-sensei. "I've-," Jiraya sighed. "I've already forgiven you. I did a long time ago. But I was just... disappointed. I was so, so disappointed in the actions you've taken."

Nagato felt his heart seize up at that. He knew he deserved it, but why did that crushing guilt and shame hurt so much? He was happy that sensei forgave him, but that did nothing to assuage his guilt. If anything, Jiraya-sensei's forgiveness made it hurt even _more_. Even worse was the fact that the man who had saved his life, who had built him up, was _disappointed_ in him. Perhaps this was why shinobi were supposed to suppress their emotions. His own turbulent feelings were making him feel dizzy and weak, like that broken child whom Konan and Yahiko found in Ame all those years ago. It _hurt_.

"But then I heard about what happened in the Leaf through the soul of a passing Konoha Shinobi. So Naruto got to you when I couldn't, huh? Cheeky little brat, always looking to surpass the master. Although, I thought that Naruto left you alive... Thank you, Nagato... I'm glad that you were the one to teach him about pain, even if it was through my own death."

"Sensei..." Nagato whispered. He had never expected to be forgiven for his actions, but here sensei was telling him that he'd done so a long time ago. It was incomprehensible. He just couldn't understand how sensei could so easily forgive someone who'd taken his life. Hell, he was _thanking_ him! Did he not care that he was murdered and left to rot in the watery depths of Ame? But nonetheless, some of that hurt in his soul disappeared. Sensei didn't hate him!

"That's enough for now, kid. We'll talk _after_ we pry whatever that was off of Naruto's soul."

Jiraya's words jolted Nagato from his thoughts and he regarded the jagged hole warily; his own indecision would have to be addressed later. Naruto was definitely stronger than him now, and possibly even stronger than Jiraya-sensei. Both of them would need to work together to bring the jinchuuriki down in his berserker fury. He had no idea how they were going to do it without inflicting some kind of injury on Naruto.

Killing-intent suddenly washed over the pair. Images of bloody and gory deaths filled their mind: fleeting sensations of pain beyond imagining. Their visions were slowly tinted with red. A killing-intent this powerful... A bloodlust that could freeze one of the Dentetsu no Sannin and a Rinnegan user in place... This sensation was far, far worse than the Kyuubi's rage had ever been, which was quite the feat as Nagato had faced the Kyuubi right up until it was about to be fully released. This wasn't just intent, it was an omen of a bloody and violent end.

The ruins of the wall suddenly exploded outward, forcing Nagato and Jiraya to jump back several yards in order to avoid the débris. As the dust cleared, a creature of the dark manifested before them. Snarling with a deep guttural growl, it advanced.

Naruto was back... but he wasn't the same Naruto. The voids in his eyes no longer clung to the shadows.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

* * *

**"TSUKUYOMI! DON'T! YOU! **_**DARE!**_**"** The insane immortal just ignored her pursuer, losing herself in the thrill of the hunt. In the past, Tsukuyomi would have been delighted with the amount of attention the sage was paying her, murderous or not, but things had changed. She was no longer the naive young goddess she had been when they first met. She was no longer enamored by his charms. He was a traitor, plain and simple. Killing his successors just so happened to be the best way to make him suffer the consequences of his actions.

**"_TSUKUYOMI!_" **The queen of the moon risked a glance behind her. She and the little sage had been racing at incredibly high speeds for the past hour (those pathetic mortals must have gotten _quite_ the head-start). What the sage had in power with his bubble of pure golden chakra, Tsukuyomi more that made up for with her superior speed and mobility.

While he had to shred through the random space-rocks that crossed his path, Tsukuyomi would merely shift in her trajectory, avoiding them by a hairs-breath each time in a show of fluid grace and flexibility. In a way, Tsukuyomi pitied the little sage. After all, who would want to be in the body of a mortal when the gods had granted them a body of such perfection? He _really_ shouldn't have betrayed them.

She absently twisted past the latest meteoroid in her path. No less than three seconds later, she heard a thundering crash as the sage behind her presumably smashed the poor rock to oblivion, but she never looked back. Hopefully the rock would slow him down long enough so that she wouldn't have to listen to his screaming. It was getting to be _sooo_ annoying!

The moon goddess then started to brainstorm on how best to slaughter those two mortals. Beheading was rather satisfying, but it was a bit too messy for her tastes. She didn't want to be caught in the spray when she cut off their heads. Or she could just stab them through the heart, but then there was the fact that she didn't actually have a weapon with her. That damnable sage's arrival had been totally unexpected, so she hadn't had the time to grab one! If she did want to get up close and personal with her attacks, the blood was going to be unavoidable.

While Tsukuyomi wasn't afraid of blood, she wasn't particularly fond of it either. Around a thousand years prior, a large group of those idiotic mortals had gotten it in their heads that if they offered her human blood as a sacrifice on the night of the full-moon, she would grant them supernatural powers. Hah! After the sage's betrayal, the divine council would _never_ trust a human again.

Nonetheless, the immortal possessed one of their bodies to witness the proceedings, as the ceremony _was_ in her honor. Unfortunately for her, the entire event was absolutely disgusting! By no means was Tsukuyomi squeamish, but after that night she developed a healthy distaste for mortal anatomy. Whenever she killed after that, she preferred to do it quickly, if only to avoid the gore that always followed. The stuff never failed to get in her hair!

After several more minutes of cruising through the thermosphere, the goddess lucked out. It was those two mortals! She couldn't really help herself when she looked over her shoulder and shouted to the man behind her, **"I think they'd look better without their arms! Won't hacking their limbs off be _fun_? If you want, we could even _tear_ those insects apart!"** The sage replied with a scream of murderous fury. Oh, he seemed to be _very_ attached to these particular mortals. If Tsukuyomi played her cards right, this could be a blast!

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

* * *

Sakura wasn't normally one to panic. She was the successor of one of the Dentetsu no Sannin, Tsunade Senju, and her rather violent teacher had drilled her early in her training to keep a clear head at all times. After all, it wouldn't do if the Hokage's apprentice made a fool of herself.

At certain points during the war, such as when several of Kabuto's reanimations including a certain Gekko Hayate had broken into the Medical Corps and made off with scrolls containing some of the most powerful shinobi that the Alliance had managed to seal, she nearly lost it, but in the end Sakura always kept a clear head. She was Sakura Haruno, the successor of the Godaime! She would not panic!

But now, Sakura was _definitely_ panicking.

Sennin-sama was off in Naruto's body fighting a goddess! How could she possibly relax when about a million things could go wrong? Maybe Naruto would accidentally retake control of his body in the middle of their fight, and Tsukuyomi would would slaughter them! Or maybe that lunatic wasn't alone and Sennin-sama would be outnumbered! Damn it, she _knew_ that leaving those three behind—Kurama was pretty much family by now—was a bad idea!

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

* * *

Sasuke seemed to notice his teammate's discomfort as they sped towards the lower levels of the earth's atmosphere. The girl was practically quivering! To anyone else, it would have looked like Sakura was scared, but Sasuke knew better. The woman at his side was not trembling from fear, it was quite the opposite actually.

Sakura was shaking with absolute rage: rage that Tsukuyomi had dared to attack her loved ones, rage that the goddess had forced them to separate. If there was one thing that Sasuke consciously took pains never to provoke, it was Sakura's anger. Once she went over the edge, there was no going back.

_'Damn you Tsukuyomi! I'll have my revenge for the situation you've put me in!'_

_**BOOM!**_

Swiftly turning his head, Sasuke turned his body, positioning himself between Sakura and the origin of the sound. Or at least he tired to. The woman wouldn't stop _squirming_!

"Get off me Sasuke! I can take care of myself!" she snapped at him. Didn't she know that she was making his job infinitely more difficult by struggling? He just _knew_ that Naruto would have his hide if anything happened to Sakura, but that wasn't to say that he wasn't concerned for her safety as well. He just had a more... roundabout way of expressing it.

"Sakura! Stop struggling!" he commanded fruitlessly. Whatever it was that made that noise, it was moving fast. That thunderous sound a few moments ago was definitely a sonic-boom. He'd learned to recognize them in his few training sessions with Juugo. But here, in the outer reaches of the atmosphere, only one person could move that fast.

Tsukuyomi.

Damn it all! Was the sage dead along with that fox? Was _Naruto_ dead? Sasuke didn't even want to think about it. There was no way that the blond idiot would let himself die! Besides, he had to focus on getting Sakura and himself to the ground in one piece. He didn't know the specifics, but it looked like the earth was a no-fly-zone for the gods. If they could just land-

**"_Mortals~!_"** Tsukuyomi sang suddenly as she appeared out of nowhere. A few seconds later, the rush of sound and debris that should have announced her presence followed. Was the goddess really that fast that she could outrun sound? But if she was faster than sound, then what was that boom from earlier? Could it be that she was just playing with them? Either way, Sasuke didn't like what she seemed capable of.

The queen of the moon seemed... different. Her once-beautiful silvery kimono was completely stained in red, as if she had slaughtered a pig above herself and let the blood drip down. It just looked messy, with silver spotted with red. Her eyes were just as intimidating, having changed color from the purest silver to a startling scarlet-red with black swirls.

Corrupted.

Her hair was a fiery red that Sasuke could have honestly mistaken for the color of one of his more advanced Katon jutsu. It was actually quite similar to the color of chakra flames. Sasuke didn't exactly know if that was a good thing or not.

A quick glance to his left revealed Sakura defiantly glaring at the immortal. This could potentially end in their slaughter if the rosette lost her head.

**"Sooooo,"** the insane immortal drawled carelessly, licking her lips in anticipation. Sasuke and Sakura both narrowed their eyes at her tone. **"Which of you two insects wants to die first?"**

Not even bothering to wait for an answer, the goddess then tensed her right hand, clenching her fingers around an invisible ball until the space between glowed with a strange red light. It didn't behave like chakra though. Chakra was more... alive. Chakra flickered and flared even under the control of the most skilled user. The light coating Tsukuyomi's hand was still, almost dead.

The power of a god...

Brandishing the red light like a weapon, Tsukuyomi charged, and all hell broke loose.

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

* * *

***_A Few Hours Later_***

It was the night of the lunar eclipse, and Hashirama Senju was currently on his favorite log, the one by the river that he and Madara always use to play next to. Running a clan could be quite hectic, so he would often take little brakes and run up here to think, just staring at the water swirling in the river. Without fail, his thoughts always turned to the Uchiha who once called him a friend. Hashirama desperately wanted to stop this foolish vendetta between their clans before something truly irreversible happened - and he wasn't alone in that notion - but Madara just wouldn't listen to reason!

That idiot Uchiha seemed to think that he would be betraying his clan by stopping the war between them! Well, it wasn't entirely his fault. That bastard brother of his, Izuna, kept whispering in his ear. Things like how many Uchiha the Senju slaughtered in the last battle. Things like how the Uchiha clan would never forgive him if he stopped. Hashirama had on more than one occasion spied on the Uchiha grounds in hopes of discovering a mutual desire for peace between himself and Madara, and it was _then_ that he heard Izuna poisoning his brother's mind with lies.

If Izuna wasn't there, the war could have ended years ago. He was the spearhead of the more aggressive sect in the Uchiha clan, always pressuring Madara to be on the offensive against the Senju, promoting preemptive strikes and encouraging their genocide. That _bastard!_

The wood-style user paused in though as a bright light flashed across the night sky, completely obscuring the stars, and to some extent, even the moon. It almost looked like a meteor, with the way flames seemed to trail behind it. He was content just to wonder at its majesty, even though it looked like it was going to impact. It honestly didn't look that big, and no one really lived where it was going to crash.

Then he gaped in shock as the meteor _stalled_, now suspended directly above the river. With a thunderous clap, it split into three with two of the pieces going east and north while the third piece shot straight towards the river at incredible speeds. Looking a bit more closely as the chuck fell for a few thousand feet, Hashirama realized that it didn't look like a meteor at all. Yes, it was flaming, but it wasn't a rock. Whatever it was, it appeared to be sheathed in golden chakra. How would something from space have any access to chakra?

The Senju clan head ignored the thought and leaped to his feet to get a closer look, disturbing his straight black hair behind him in the process. This could be a potentially threatening situation, and whatever happened, he had to be ready. He shifted into his battle stance, completely prepared to activate his sage-mode at a moment's notice. In a few more seconds, the object fell until it was merely a few hundred feet above the ground. What Hashirama _was _expecting was for the pice of debris to tear straight through the water of the Naka River and bury itself in the riverbed, causing a miniature tsunami in the process. However, reality promptly stuck it to his assumptions.

For whatever reason, the water rose up to meet the object like a living tendril, increasing the distance between the surface of impact and the riverbed. There was a tremendous splash as it crashed down into its own personal pillar of water, which happened to be enough to fully stop its descent before it reached the riverbed. All this time, a certain Senju had only one thought... _'How. The. _Hell_?!__'_

When the waters subsided, Hashirama immediately rushed over atop the water to where he had seen the object fall. By the looks of the landing, it had to be intact. When he was standing over the impact-zone, he saw it floating back up. No, not _it_. _She._ That thing that fell from the sky was a girl!

Now, being a clan head, Hashirama was far to busy to learn much about the opposite gender. But even so, he knew that it wasn't natural to have pink hair. Seriously, _pink hair!_

He carefully stooped over and reached into the water, grasping her hand, and pulled her bridal-style into her arms. She seemed harmless enough at the moment, given that she was out-cold, but appearances could be deceiving. The moment their skin touched the pink-haired woman appeared to flinch, but she relaxed after a few seconds.

At least she was breathing properly, even if she did look utterly exhausted. He didn't want to know how Mito would react to him preforming mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on another woman, especially one as... _unique _as the woman in his arms. Shaking his head to ward off evil thoughts, he headed back to the Senju Clan compound. Hopefully, one of his subordinates would be able to understand what had just happened a bit better than he just did...

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

* * *

**Author's Note****:** _So I've given you another cliffhanger. Sue me. (Kidding, please don't) __This is actually quite integral to my next chapter in which everyone will _start_ in the wars. So yes, I _did_ leave you all hanging again. Just rejoice that this time-travel crap is finally over with. Frankly, I absolutely loathed writing this chapter, and it might have shown a bit with my word-choice in some areas._

_So, the major points of this chapter:_

**Jiraya**_: Come on. It was Nagato vs Naruto. How could I resist throwing him into the fray, especially when Kabuto couldn't reanimate him in Canon? I also felt that if anyone besides Naruto's parents could truly banish the darkness in Naruto's heart, it was Jiraya. Yes, I could have picked Iruka, but Iruka isn't insanely powerful and he doesn't have a connection with Nagato._

_And more than that, Jiraya finally gets the chance to see how far Naruto's grown._

**Tsukuyomi**_: What is her history with the sage? Why does she seem so mad at him, to the point of wanting to dismember his students? Here's what I _can_ tell you about her. She was raised by the sun goddess, Amaterasu, whom she affectionately refers to as her big sister. She wasn't intended to become the moon goddess because there wasn't suppose to be a moon in the first place. It was intended that she succeed Amaterasu for the divine throne in the sun palace. So yeah, she's a bit peeved at the sage for forcing her into the position of jail-keeper for the Juubi when she was meant to be the head-honcho of the heavens. _

**Naruto**_: What exactly is wrong with him? Why is he acting like he has the self-control of a toddler? All that I'm going to say on this subject is that it's connected to the main antagonist. It's still too early to introduce him/her/it (that's right, no clues for you!), so that entire scene was a vague hint at the level of control that the darkness could achieve over the protagonists if they were vulnerable._

_And before anyone asks, I'm just gonna say this._

_No, the sage was not prioritizing Sakura and Sasuke's safety over that of Naruto and Kurama. He was confident in his abilities to hold Tsukuyomi at bay while Sasuke and Sakura escaped. Then he could just jump down to earth, the land forbidden to the gods. Obviously, the plan didn't work out as Tsukuyomi just ignored him and went after the other two..._

_Now what happened to _him_? You'll find out in the next chapter._

**_Now, _Hashirama**_. I refuse to say anything about him yet... Trust me, you will agree with my decision in the next chapter. But I _will_ say this. Hashirama WILL be with Mito. Nothing will change my mind about that. They're as cemented as Kushina and Minato are in their relationship._

_Also, I've got a wonderful story to recommend to all of you: _

**_Story Recommendation:_**

_This story is definitely the most under-appreciated story I've ever seen. It's called My Priest, My Son? by my friend Grace of Hearts. Yes, it is an after-the-war story, but it is_ not_ just fluff. There is a healthy mix of action and adventure as well. In fact, I would go as far as to say that it's the _best_ story of its kind that I've ever read. Well, here's the summary so you lovely readers don't have to look it up yourselves._

Fifteen years ago, Naruto made an unsightly promise to Priestess Shion. The result of that promise came back to haunt him the day of his children's graduation from the academy, and stirs up trouble with his dream of becoming a shinobi. Meanwhile, dark forces from the past are stretching out over the ninja world once again. Could Naruto's priest-born son unconsciously be the cause?

_You guys should all check it out. I promise you won't be disappointed!_

_Anyway, until next time!_


	12. Chapter 10: LOST

**Author's**** Note****: **_Yes! It's an update! First of all, a huge thank-you to everyone of you for over 36,000 views! I honestly never thought this story would ever be that popular! ^^_

_Also, a huge thanks to my betas: **Grace of Hearts**, **E3-FantasyandReality**, and a new friend who gave me a lot of helpful suggestions this time, **Infamous Storm**._

_Now, I don't ask them to beta for grammar mistakes, even though that's the purpose of a beta... I do all my own editing... I ask for their opinions on my plot itself, so they are all a huge influence on the story and all of them are good authors, so check them out!_

_Now, I don't have time to really respond to all of you lovely reviewers in this chapter, so I'll just be listing you. I'll get to you in the next chapter, I promise!_

_Thanks for reviewing: **Nightshadegirl, ssw777, , Infamous Storm, xyz, Azzurro, Twisted-Vampire Knight-Red, PrincessT123, E3-FantasyandReality, Unknown Shinobi, Taijen, FruitySmell, Beloved Daughter, MBScavenger1498, AmandaSingh0, Feral Smile, william and jack and jake, Analon, xdevil-childx, Rin Eve Klein, JJB91, shadowmarialove, Theunfunny9, BlackGryphon101, Grace of Hearts, TayShiorra, **and **Rikkudo**. I really do appreciate that you all take the time to type up your opinions._

**Claimer****: **_Tsukuyomi is mine!... Even though she's actually the moon goddess in Shinto mythology... But she's still mine I tell you!_

_Now, on with the story!_

* * *

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

The Clan Wars

Chapter 10: LOST

Sasuke Uchiha was a genius, a natural shinobi. Born into the head family of the revered Uchiha clan, he was forged into a first-tier fighter from the time he could walk. Where other children would get balls or other toys, little Sasuke would entertain himself by flinging around little wooden kunai or shruiken, mostly missing his chosen targets.

At the time though, his aim hadn't really mattered. The _true_ purpose of the toys was not to entertain the boy, but to get him accustomed to the feeling of a weapon in his hands. Their purpose was to prepare him for the life of a killer, for life as a shinobi. Sasuke's _'toys'_ were step-one in forging him into a blade of the Uchiha.

Such was the fate of all Uchiha children who had hopes of activating the Sharingan, not just Sasuke. He just felt it more keenly, being the second son of the clan head. He was their spare sword while Itachi was the treasured family blade.

And that was why, even after years of bloodshed, even after the slaughter of his clan and the loss of his beloved aniki, he was able to ward off the breaking of his mind and soul. He was born for this, raised for this. All Uchiha were.

So, with an upbringing like his, why did he feel so _weak?_

* * *

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

He was falling again. Sasuke decided that he hated the general sensation; it made him feel helpless. He didn't really do the whole plummeting-upside-down thing. _Flying _though was much better. When he was flying, Sasuke felt free,_ limitless_. He felt complete in the air, where he was always in perfect control of his movements. The Sharingan was useful for more than just seeing through jutsu after all. His hawk summons certainly took pleasure in their summoner having such a keen appreciation to their sacred art.

However, at the moment he lacked all manner of control as he careened towards the Earth. Somewhere along the way, he had lost his hold on Sakura and Naruto in some kind of a chakra explosion.

In all honesty, something like that was to be expected. The chakra-bubble looked to be designed for basic defense as well as a heat-barrier for their entry into the earth's atmosphere, but that battle against the moon goddess had almost completely stripped that defensive barrier away. With the brutal battering Tsukuyomi had delivered to the defenses, it was really no wonder that the bubble had ended up exploding due to overall instability.

Damn it all, he was alone again. From what he had seen, Sakura had plummeted to the river below them, so hopefully the water would cushion her impact. Even if it didn't cushion her, the woman had other ways of surviving: she wasn't the successor of Tsunade Senju for nothing. He didn't know where Naruto went though... Well, wherever the dobe ended up, that crazy healing ability of his would ensure his survival.

But despite his confidence in the survival of his comrades, Sasuke was _furious_!

One minute, all of them had _barely_ escaped that murderous woman Tsukuyomi, and the next—_**BOOM**—_his teammates, the only people he still cared about, were both torn from his grasp. It was all so abrupt, so frustrating. They had _plans_ damn it!

He swore to himself, one day, he would make the moon goddess bleed. He would make her _beg_ to be mortal just so she could die, but he wouldn't let her! How _dare_ she attack them and force them to separate!

Sasuke snarled as he absently noticed the shattered remnants of the chakra-bubble desperately trying to reform around him, trying their best to shield him. He grimaced to himself: the protection would have certainly been useful, but there were holes, so many holes, ripped into the defenses.

Were Naruto and Sakura in as grim a situation as he was? Without their protective barriers intact, if they didn't burn up in the atmosphere (which thankfully, they had passed through before the explosion occurred), they would meet the Shinigami regardless. The ground looked to be pretty damn unforgiving of anything from this great height. The last Uchiha of another world had his own reservations about going _splat_ on the ground.

As Sasuke began to lose himself in thought, the ground gradually crept closer to the airborne bubble, sneaking up on the Uchiha like it was a hungry predator and Sasuke was a free lame rabbit. A mountain range narrowly missed catching the teenager in its rocky crags by less than a foot, but the raven-haired male didn't even notice. He was just too exhausted to really pay attention the anything right now.

Below him, ancient pine forests and fast flowing rivers witnessed in silence as the young man fell from the sky.

The landscape then started to leap up aggressively at the bubble, sending the vivid green hills and the tallest trees to try to break through, but they all missed. Throughout the entire ordeal, the Uchiha remained unaware of the acute danger he was in, completely ignoring his sheer luck for missing all of what would have been fatal crash-sites. He was far too busy trying to get his body to work properly again to panic.

Unstable chakra had a nasty habit of disorienting the bodily functions, nearly all of which required a smooth and steady, if minute, flow of chakra. In other words, his nervous system was a bit frazzled from that chakra explosion.

Yet another reason to decapitate Tsukuyomi. Messily...

Within moments of the thought, Sasuke had the reality of his situation shoved in his face when a lone dead tree on top of some ragged mountain, far above the tree-line, broke through his protective barrier and viciously tore at his shoulder when his angular descent brought him past it.

"Gahh!"

The pain gave him the edge he so desperately needed. The pain of his shoulder being ripped into without pause released his suppressed chakra and flooded him with inner power. The pain returned to him his strength, the life-force that marked his shinobi heritage: his birthright.

**Tha**_**-thump**  
_

Sasuke's chakra painfully surged back into him, flowing evenly with his powerful heartbeat. His blood overflowed with fire and lightning, humming with a barely restrained power that screamed to be unleashed.

_Survive..._

It was a familiar but unknown feminine voice that whispered to him soothingly, the word echoing within his mind, resonating with deep within his soul. Sasuke _knew_ that voice with all his heart, and yet he couldn't quite place it. No matter how hard he strained his senses, he couldn't tell where it was coming from; it seemed to originate from everywhere at once, just like Tsukuyomi's had at first...

Damn it, if this was a god again...

_You are the last Uchiha of another world. This is not enough silence a bearer of the blessed eyes. You are destined for great things, Uchiha Sasuke..._

... So it wasn't a god? They didn't exactly seem partial to mortals like the owner of this voice did. And destiny? Did that even apply to gods? Were they not above such things?

_'An Uchiha...'_ he thought to himself. The ground drew ever closer.

**Tha-_thump_**

_Survive_, she murmured to him again, pleading with him to act.

_Do not die here. Do not die today. _

_Survive...__  
_

**Tha_-thump_**

The woman's words rang true in Sasuke's heart, and he wished desperately to obey her command.

_'Blessed eyes... An Uchiha... Will... Not die! I... will not die!'_

_Uchiha Sasuke, _the voice called again. _Rise to your destiny. Surpass this trial..._

**Tha_-thump_**

_'I... WILL NOT DIE! I AM _UCHIHA SASUKE_, AND THIS IS _NOT_ ENOUGH TO SILENCE ME!'_

_Yes... Survive..._

**Tha_-thump_**

With a roar, he flipped himself over to face the rapidly approaching ground, and he unleashed his birthright upon the world below.

"MANGEKYŌ SHARINGAN!"

The mysterious-yet-familiar woman spoke once more, her tone that of victory and triumph.

_It is done! The great flow of fate is ensured! Rise to your destiny, Uchiha Sasuke! Never falter, never give in!_

_Rise and take this world by the horns! Rule your own fate!_

**Tha-_thump_**

_Dominate this realm, Uchiha Sasuke!_

_Rise to greatness!_

_Triumph!_

**Tha_-thump_**

That series of red loops with the black barrier surfaced in his eyes, overpowering the black that normally dwelt within his pupils. This power… it felt stronger than when he had used it in the battle against the Juubi, but it was still weak compared to when he had activated the Rinnegan.

But the ripple-eyes were not necessary for what he needed to accomplish in this situation. Nonetheless, the overwhelming might of the Sharingan coursed through him, filling him with an unshakable confidence. He did not need the power of gods, just something close...

**Tha_-thump_**

Another random tree zipped by him, standing tall on the mountainside. The Uchiha heir then realized that he was cruising down the jagged slopes of one of the mountains in that mountain range he seemed to have stumbled across.

The granite behemoths loomed in his vision, and he had no doubt that he would be crushed like a bug should he crash as he was, speeding like a flaming meteor to the ground.

Alarmingly, he saw the ground less than three-hundred meters away, getting closer by the millisecond. At the speeds he was traveling, that was less than twenty seconds away!

Fifteen seconds...

**Tha_-thump_**

"SUSANOO!" he shouted almost desperately, with an incredibly alarmed expression playing across his face. Like hell he would die here like this!

The four-armed spectral warrior hastily manifested protectively around its master, the air around it shivering with otherworldly power. It brought its arms forward in a block against the ground even as the last bits if its armor attached themselves around it. Sasuke closed his eyes and tightened his body in anticipation of the impact.

**Tha_-thump_**

Then that beautiful, melodious feminine voice spoke one last time, taking on a surprisingly tender tone. It was a stark contrast to the urgent pleading that the woman had been employing before. This voice was more... homely, more comforting. Hearing her voice was like hearing a summer breeze: full of life.

_I'm so proud of the man you've become, Sasuke__._

_Be strong, for you are all that remains of a once great and powerful clan._

_You are the last legacy of the mighty Uchiha._

_'The last Uchiha... I am the last, of another time, of another world...'_

**Tha-_thump_**

_Live well, my son, my little boy. Be strong._

Sasuke was beyond stunned. _'Kaa-san! Wait!'_

_I love you..._

**Tha-_thump_**

_'Kaa-san!'_

Two seconds...

**Tha-_thump_**

One second...

**Tha-_thump_**

Then he hit.

**CRASH!**

The last remnants of the sage's broken chakra vaporized in the assault and Sasuke's summoned Susanoo plowed through a forested mountainside, shredding through trees and boulders alike in a completely out-of-control tumble. With one last uncontrollable roll, Sasuke stopped his descent down the mountainside by having his spectral summon bury its hand into the ground. For a moment, the Uchiha was jarred by the abrupt change in momentum, but he couldn't argue with the results.

He was safely on the ground.

An ancient pine forest loomed proudly around him, the animal occupants deathly silent in the wake of his crash-landing. Looking back, Sasuke saw the trench that his Susanoo had torn through the forest floor. He carefully deactivated his spectral warrior and kissed the ground with his unsteady feet. After a few moments of steadying himself, Sasuke came to a realization.

He was _alive!_

His thoughts immediately turned back towards his mother, whose voice had given him the strength and determination to prevail. She was silent now, and he would probably never hear her again. He had no proof, but he just _knew_ it to be true. He knew it in his soul.

His mother was gone...

_'Thank you, Kaa-san. Wherever you are now... I wouldn't have made it without you. I... I love you too, Kaa-san.'_

He would not question how his mother had managed to speak to him, but whatever the cause, he was grateful. Sasuke had missed his mother's voice for so long, and to hear her speak to him again... He just...

But for now, the Uchiha shinobi shut down his emotions. As it was, Sasuke was having trouble breathing as he felt his chest seize up and his heart beat erratically. Such feelings would only hinder him in this potentially hostile environment. In other words, they were a distraction...

Gigantic trees stood before him, and he could hear the rushing water of some river or waterfall some distance behind him. It was a primal forest, a dwelling of the wildest creatures. A vivid green dominated the surroundings while the night sky loomed above, blanketed with stars. With his abilities, nothing would pose a threat to him. Correctly utilized chakra could solve most problems after all.

... But he had no idea where he was...

Sasuke cursed.

* * *

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

Naruto, by principle, was a deep sleeper. The ability to plop down anywhere came in handy during his early childhood, when the matron of Konoha's orphanage 'accidentally' locked him out on multiple occasions. Hokage-jiji's Anbu always made sure he was safe from any severe physical abuse, but beyond that they never interfered. Their job was to preserve the life of Konoha's jinchuuriki, not ensure his well-being. Preforming domestic duties was beyond their job-description.

But now, Naruto was _finally _waking up, and _man_ did his head hurt! Why did it feel like Sasuke's Susanoo had stomped the living snot out of him? Naruto shifted a bit to push himself off of the ground, but stopped when his very bones shrieked in protest at the movement.

Scratch that, why did it feel like Teme _and_ Sakura-chan had used him as a training-dummy?

The poor blond froze in his thoughts as another wave of pain spiked through his nerves. Damn, it hurt worse than after his battle with the Juubi! And that thing had nearly _shredded _him! Just how badly was he injured right now?

Naruto still hadn't opened his eyes, but he was afraid to look. _Everywhere_ hurt this time, not just his limbs and chest. He didn't even know how he got injured! As far as he was concerned, he had just made it through that wormhole thingy and was about to travel down to earth.

But after that... after that, all he saw was red and black. For the love of ramen, why couldn't he remember!? No... wait. The memories were still there, they just felt... _repressed_. Yeah, that was the word. His memories were right there at the surface, so close that he could practically touch them.

_'Ahh, I'll deal with all that complicated stuff later.'_

Slowly and reluctantly, Naruto opened his eyes... only to find that he didn't even have a scratch. The rest of his surroundings were blurry though.

_'... The Hell?'_

He experimentally attempted to move his right arm and grimaced in agony as the pain lanced up all the way past his shoulder, eventually driving its spike through his head. It took him a few seconds to breathe again, that horrible sensation having knocked the air out of his lungs.

Nope, he was _definitely_ hurt, but why couldn't he see where? Right now, his entire body was throbbing with utter agony, so he couldn't pinpoint any specific part of it that was particularly excruciating. Maybe he had internal bleeding? He had heard from Sakura-chan that sometimes, that kind of bleeding didn't show any external signs, so the medics couldn't catch it in time. But if that was true, then why hadn't Kurama helped to heal him yet?

_'Lousy fox! That's his most important job! We made a deal!'_ Naruto screamed out in his head, mostly because he didn't dare move his jaw or even his lips. It all freaking _hurt!_

Continuing, Naruto remained perfectly still in his unknown, but quiet, surroundings as he delved into his mindscape. He had a fox to yell at and an old man to question.

* * *

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

***_With Sasuke: Some Time Later_***

Sasuke had been tree-hopping for _hours_. This stupid forest was huge! Nothing but trees and the occasional mountain and river plagued his vision. As far as he remembered, there wasn't a forest this large in the entirety of the Elemental Nations, so that meant that not only was he lost, but he was lost in a world with far less of a claim to civilization than his own.

That probably also meant that there was no mass-production of tomatoes in this era.

Muttering darkly to himself, Sasuke quickly leaped towards one of the smaller mountains, attaching his feet to the vertical slope with some chakra and sprinting straight up the side. After around two-hundred meters of vertical sprinting, the Uchiha lithely ceased his momentum at the mountain's flat and rocky peak, springing lightly on his heels as he abruptly stopped.

That was the strange thing about the mountains in this range: some were huge enough to be forested towards their bases with snow-capped peaks, looming thousands of feet to brush the clouds, while others were smaller but entirely comprised of rock.

Sasuke liked the smaller, rocky mountains better. He didn't have to weave through any trees to get over those. It was just a matter of chakra-control with his feet to clamber up to the top. The only annoying part was that no matter how many times he looked, _nothing_ was in sight of this godforsaken range.

As he stood on the peak of the mountain, the Uchiha scanned the horizon for the slightest sign of human activity. The sooner he found human civilization, the sooner he would find Sakura and Naruto again... That is, if it would just _show up_!

Yet again, all that Sasuke saw was a dense pine forest, a few more mountains of the range, a thin tower of smoke, and... wait..._ smoke_?!_  
_

He jumped off of the mountain, and with a ferocity born of extreme annoyance, Sasuke tore through the forest towards the smoke. There could be people! They might even have tomatoes!

Catching his thoughts in the making, Sasuke promptly crushed them. Such thoughts were not worthy of a true shinobi, no matter how delicious and nutritious tomatoes were. In this era, smoke in the middle of nowhere more than likely signified a skirmish in the making.

A battle was ahead.

Sasuke raced towards it without hesitation.

* * *

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

***_Meanwhile __In Naruto's Mindscape_***

Naruto was a bit dizzy from his sudden entry to his mindscape. It wasn't usually this fast, so he normally had the time to adjust to the changes in his surroundings. Something was different...

He opened his eyes as soon as he felt the ground under him stop moving.

_'Holy shit!'_

Naruto was very surprised by what he saw. Kurama's cage was in front of him, with the door wide open and the fox himself nowhere to be seen. Surrounding the Six-Paths cage were the ruins of what looked like an extremely complicated labyrinth, the complexity of which Naruto had no doubt he would get lost in. The sewer that use to be his mind was gone.

Erased...

Was this even his mind anymore? Where the heck was geezer-sensei? From the looks of things, nobody but he was around in this place.

He cautiously took a step forward, instinctively crouching into a battle-ready position. The blond noted with delight that while his body in the real world was immobilized with agony, none of that pain had filtered through to his mindscape, but he remained alert nonetheless.

Despite this place being _his_ mindscape, it was obviously the site of a ferocious battle. The parts of the walls that were still standing had extreme burns, the intensity of which could only be achieved by jutsu. They had been bathed in fires that could melt stone... But that wasn't the only thing that bothered him. There were... _claw-marks_ on the floor! Huge tears that slashed through the ground like it was paper were scattered across the floor. And the only thing in here that had claws was...

"KURAMA!" he screamed, the sound echoing in the vast chamber of his mind. Naruto could still feel his connection to the fox, pulsing as always with his own heartbeat, but he couldn't pinpoint Kurama's exact location.

There was no answer but his own echos.

That troubled the blond greatly. The fox would never just wander off like this, he had no reason to. But more than that, how had the door opened by itself? And where the hell was Geezer-sensei?!

"ANYONE?" Naruto called out again. After receiving no answer, the blond advanced, slowly walking up to the door of Kurama's Six-Paths cage. Reaching out with his hand, he touched a bar on the door, running his palm along the corse metal rod. It was cold: Kurama had been gone for a while.

That was just great! Did that mean that he had to go fox-hunting just to get some answers? How the hell was he suppose to find anything in this maze of a mindscape anyway? Even worse, geezer-sensei and Kurama could be in two completely different places! Ahh, sometimes it seemed like the universe hated him!

Naruto swore.

* * *

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

***_With Naruto: Some Time Later_***

Naruto had been wandering in the labyrinth of his mindscape for quite a while. It all looked the same: broken walls, a few pieces of melted stone, jagged claw-marks here and there. Konoha's whiskered blond marveled at the craftsmanship of the more intact segments of the labyrinth, but he was still agitated, despite his amazement.

Did the battle really span that widely? Was it really the size of the entire labyrinth? Who had been fighting in it anyway?

The blond abruptly stopped thinking. If he focused on too many questions, he would never get any of them answered, with each one requiring a bit of his concentration until there was nothing left to give. He wasn't exactly the master of multi-tasking without his shadow-clones. So, he focused on what he believed to be the most important one.

_'Where the hell are Geezer-sensei and Kurama? How does a city-sized fox even hide anywhere?'_

Growling to himself, Naruto stopped and briefly analyzed his surroundings. He sighed. This place was just the same as the rest of them: incredibly tall walls, all of them smashed through, scorched, and slashed with no traceable pattern. In other words, there was no way for Naruto to track the direction in which the fight had gone... it was everywhere.

The Konoha nin paused for a moment in thought. He'd tried to climb over some of the standing parts of the maze to try to get a better view, but his mindscape was ginormous! Did his mindscape being huge mean that he was smart? Funny, he didn't _feel_ that much smarter ever since the sewer had disappeared. Then again, he didn't really know when that had even happened. Maybe it was when Geezer-sensei sealed himself?

**_Thud._**

Naruto's head snapped to his right, where the sound like fracturing of heavy stone had originated. This was the first break in the oppressive silence that filled the air. It was the first sign that he was not alone here in the ruins of this maze. It was his first clue to Kurama's and geezer-sensei's disappearance.

"KURAMA! GEEZER-SENSEI!" he screamed. No one answered him. Not even his faithful echo had deigned to reply.

Naruto then flooded his body with a golden light, the energy writhing around him like flames. Strange black symbols traced his body from his arms to his chest, and then down to his feet. His once light whisker-marks were now thick black stripes against the golden skin of his cheeks.

All the while, a cloak of pure, condensed golden chakra fluttered behind him, flowing in the breeze of an unfelt wind, thrumming with an overwhelming power. His slitted eyes shone a brilliant red—the eyes of Kurama, the ninth tailed beast.

This writhing shroud, this flaming cloak was his ultimate power, his and Kurama's power: _Bijuu-mode_. Just because he couldn't find the fox at the moment didn't mean that Naruto had lost the Kyuubi chakra. The tailed-beast's life-energy was practically his birthright! He'd worked pretty hard to earn it in the first place too!

Naruto took a single step towards where he had heard the sound, and then with a burst of godlike speed, he vanished in a golden flash.

* * *

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

When he flashed into the area, Naruto wasn't expecting what he found. What he _expected_ was to see Geezer-sensei and Kurama kicking down walls 'cause they were bored or something. But what he saw...

A few yards in front of Naruto was an area approximately thirty meters in diameter that was completely cleared of debris, as though it had all been blasted away. The floor was... _shiny_. Naruto took an experimental step and had to steady himself almost immediately when his foot started to slip on the slick surface. It looked like the floor was _glass_.

That in itself was an anomaly; the floor everywhere else in the maze was a rough, sandy grey stone. But here, it was a rippling, shiny black.

Obsidian.

However, the glossy black floor wasn't what had caught Naruto's attention. No, the focus of Naruto's attention was in the center of the clearing, where the ripples of volcanic glass appeared to originate. There were _statues_. Now the fact that there were statues didn't really scare Naruto, but their faces froze his blood.

There were three. Three sentinels frozen in eternal combat, forever at one another's throats, faces set in an everlasting snarl.

And he knew them...

The largest of the three was also the most familiar. His untamable spiky hair, some of which was tied back into a ponytail, curled around the statues like some kind of a sentient being, as though it was herding them all together. His facial features were somewhat distorted, with his nose humongous and warty and his eyes tiny with horizontal pupils. All in all, the man resembled an upright, spiky-haired toad.

But it was his distinctive horned hitai-ate that gave him away. _Oil_.

It was Ero-Sennin: Jiraya of the Dentetsu no Sannin. The statue in front of Naruto was in the likeness of his godfather...

However, the Toad-Sage did not stand alone. There was one more very familiar, very important person poised right across from him in a warrior's-stance.

Straight hair and high cheekbones marked the face of the second statue, making him easy to recognize, but his eyes made him indistinguishable. A series of concentric ripples: the eyes of creation. It was the Rinnegan.

_Nagato_.

What the hell were Jiraya and Nagato doing here?! And why were they statues?!

But the fact that his formerly dead sensei and fellow disciple were petrified in front of him didn't even register. All that Naruto saw was the fact that the two people who were probably the largest influences in all his life were locked on mortal combat with... _something_.

To the left, Jiraya's statue pinned down what appeared to be a writhing tail with his right foot while he brandished his hand like a weapon. The hand appeared to clench around an invisible sphere, seemingly grasping at thin air, but Naruto knew that position like the back of his hand. Ero-Sennin was holding a Rasengan, a freakin' _huge_ one too.

Was whatever he and Nagato were fighting really dangerous enough to require a house-sized rasengan? Regaining his train of thought, Naruto turned back to the strange statues for closer inspection. He had this eerie feeling that they were more than just stone...

While Jiraya was stepping on the creature's tail, Nagato was a few feet in font of its snapping jaws with an open palm pointed at its face and a long chakra-rod poised in his other hand mercilessly like a spear—they were trying to kill it.

The creature in question was like nothing Naruto had ever seen. The first thing that stood out was that its statue was made of a completely different substance than Jiraya's and Nagato's. The ninjas' statues were that same grayish granite which lined the labyrinthian's walls, making them seem a part of the maze itself. The thing that they were trying to kill though was a creature of the darkest black, made of some unknown metal that seemed to suck in the light from around it.

A long, scaled tail, almost like a snake's in structure, was firmly lodged under Jiraya's foot. With a body was the size of a bear, its four viciously clawed limbs planted firmly on the floor as it reared its head, presumably to bite off Nagato's. But it was the head was particularly scary; huge muscled jaws were lined with curved-in teeth, all set firmly in a long, wolf-like snout. Huge horns adorned the creature's cranium like a crown, and sharp spines lines its serpentine neck.

And yet, despite it being so big, it had that lithe quality that one associates with big cats; it was a creature of feline grace and flexibility.

When the blond jinchuuriki soaked in the sight in front of him, only one word came to mind:

_Dragon._

Now, Naruto had never seen a dragon before—those things were supposed to be extinct after all—but he had seen plenty of pictures. It looked like those dumb little story books came in handy after all. The one in front of him even had those weird catfish-like whiskers just above its nostrils, just like in those hand-drawn pictures. Three serrated claws decorated each foot, giving each limb a lethal potential.

But dragons were the servants of the gods. Why did this one have such an vile aura? It was almost as if... almost as if the beast was a creature of chaos rather than creation, utterly bent on the worlds destruction. That was the feeling Naruto got just by looking into its unseeing ebony eyes. What could a dragon possibly be doing here?

Naruto looked up after several minutes of staring at the beast, trying to understand such an alien creature. If Nagato's and Ero-Sennin's statues were trying to kill it, it was probably better not to touch the thing. He walked a few feet away and immediately plopped himself down in a meditative pose; it was going to take a while to decipher his first and only clue.

Why, in the holy name of ramen, were there three creepily realistic statues in the middle of his mindscape? And why did it look like there were little bits of Nature-chakra clinging to Ero-Sennin's statue?

Naruto sighed. He hated trying to answer his own questions.

All he knew was that something of a great importance had occurred...

* * *

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

***_With Naruto: After a Few Hours of Thinking_***

"..."

"..."

"..."

Naruto had made no progress...

* * *

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

***_Meanwhile with Sasuke_***

The battle raged before him, all blood and gore. Two distinct groups of shinobi were at each other's throats, clashing with kunai and jutsu, like they were feuding wolves determined to annihilate one another. Seven fell in that one moment alone.

They were bent on a massacre.

Without any visible signal, they dispersed and gathered into two groups on opposite sides of the small prairie.

Sasuke snarled silently as he alighted himself on a nearby branch and witnessed the skirmish play out before him. In front of him was a tiny clearing, an oasis of grasses in this god-forsaken land of pines and mountains. Spanning for about seventy yards in diameter, it was the only pice of flat land that he'd seen for miles.

Currently, it was also the place were Sasuke had spotted what he believed to be the only _humans_ in miles as well. That collective mass could be separated into two groups, based upon how they were garbed alone.

The score of shinobi crouching lithely on the left side of the clearing were dressed in light shades of brown and a forest-green. They muttered impatiently, fingering their kunai and shuriken as they glared murderously at the opposing force.

There were a total of thirteen ninja facing them on the opposite side, all proudly adorned in what appeared to be a uniform of sorts, a shade of sky-blue punctuated by horizontal scarlet stripes.

All in all, Sasuke concluded that it was a horrible uniform. Such attire presented absolutely no opportunity for camouflage, and as far as he knew, the only ninja who'd ever gotten away with wearing a color as obvious as that was Naruto. It was really no big surprise that these... _ninja_ (if they even _deserved_ to be called shinobi after wearing those clothes) were on the losing side. The opposing force had only lost six while they had lost twelve.

The shinobi in the uniforms were obviously the lesser-skilled and the weaker bunch. Sasuke had no use for the weak.

The Uchiha scion was about to let natural selection play out and speak with the winners of the battle when suddenly, he heard a high-pitched cry. No, not just a cry, a _child's _cry.

His head snapped up and his eyes blazed as the Sharingan surfaced, overwhelming the black of his pupils. He tracked down the origin of the sound in an instant, not using just his ears, but also his Sharingan, noting every shinobi's discreet reactions to the child's voice.

The ninja in the green and brown seemed to become more excited, smirking superiorly and twirling their weapons impatiently while the smaller group of blue-garbed shinobi tensed in a stressed manner, every so often sparing a quick glance behind them. Sasuke followed their glances to...

His mother...

Sasuke felt like the breath had been punched from his lungs.

Sitting a few dozen yards behind the blue shinobi was a women who could have easily passed for Mikoto Uchiha. At the moment, she was occupied trying to comfort a little girl who was obviously related to her, with the same porcelain face, dark hair and black eyes. The child couldn't have been older than five.

"Shhh. Imouto, it's okay," the woman murmured in a familiar soothing voice, so quiet that Sasuke strained to pick up what she was saying. He soaked in every sound: she had his mother's voice as well, but he knew that this woman, this _girl_, was not his mother, as painful as that was to admit.

For one thing, she was younger than him by about a year. Not only that, but his mother's look-alike was obviously a noblewoman. She was dressed in a fine red silk kimono, her midnight hair held back in an elaborate bun with ornate jade hairpins. Intricately crafted golden earrings dangled from the sides of her head, a clear show of her wealth and status.

But more than that, this girl had an entire platoon of shinobi guarding her. That alone spoke volumes of her worth. However, her guardians were obviously losing to the viscousness of their attackers...

With a savage war-cry, the green-garbed shinobi all raced forward as one, deflecting any kunai and shuriken that the girl's guardians flung in their direction. Just as the two remainders of the enemy platoons were about to collide with one another, Sasuke made his move.

With a shunshin so fast that it would leave Shisui reeling, he vanished from his perch in the tree-branch with a burst of speed, reappearing without warning in the middle of the bloodied field with his ninjatō leveled threateningly at the shinobi in green, his Sharingan still whirling furiously. He had made his decision here...

* * *

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

Hastily skidding to a stop, the platoon in the green stared at Sasuke in a fascinated sort of disbelief. What kind of a shinobi just jumped into a middle of a battle like that? Did he have a death wish?

The Shimura clan-head was about to step forward and demand that the strange ninja remove himself from the field, but he stopped once he noticed the young man's eyes.

Pools of crimson with three hypnotizing tomoe surrounding the pupils in each. The demon eyes.

Sharingan.

_Uchiha._

_'Shit!'_

**Tha-_thump_**

Without warning, killing-intent flooded the field in a raging storm of murderous fury. The terror and fear saturated the air, drowning them. Suffocating them.

_'W-we're dead!'_

The young Uchiha scion seemed to realize that he was the leader, and slowly moved to point his blade towards him in clear intent.

"Leave," he said, but that one word was enough. That single command somehow carried the promise of pain and sorrow beyond imagining. This was not a man, this was a demon in human skin, with a voice so cold and uncaring that it could freeze the sun itself.

The man's heart nearly stopped when the Uchiha took a step towards him. Then another, and another, each footfall like an earth-shattering boom. _'Need to... Run... We can't win... The Uchiha... will slaughter us...'_

**Tha-_thump_**

Self-preservation finally kicked in, breaking the invisible chains that seemed to hold him to the ground.

"Retreat," he breathed, barely able to force the word past his lips in the presence of such a terror-inspiring shinobi. Then he shook his head to break the spell and screamed out a command as loudly as he dared, "HE'S AN UCHIHA! RETREAT!"

His clan, obviously having made the same conclusion as their head, obeyed without question. None but the Senju could match the Uchiha. They didn't stand a chance against a bearer of the demon eyes. Even if their entire platoon attacked at once, their assaults would be rendered useless by those crimson eyes, those horrible crimson eyes.

They bolted from there faster than a deer would run from wolves, the Uchiha's Sharingan glaring after them all the while. They couldn't shake that feeling of being hunted, no matter how fast they ran, no matter how far they ran.

They could feel the Sharingan watching, tracking them as they fled, _hunting_ them.._._

The demon eyes always remembered a face... _Always_...

* * *

oOoOoOoOoOoOo

***_Senju Clan Compound_***

Sakura was by no means a morning person, she was more of a late-afternoon riser. However, her career as a ninja often demanded that she force herself awake in the dead hours of the morning in defiance of her body's numerous protests. This was the main cause of her legendary short temper, second only to that of Tsunade Senju.

But woe to anyone who dared to try and wake her.

And that was why Tobirama Senju was a _very_ unlucky man...

***_A Few Hours Earlier_***

His elder brother had strolled into the clan compound an hour before sunrise. Now this wasn't all that unusual; Hashirama often took midnight strolls through the forest to clear his head. But more than that, Tobirama could see the positive effect that these moonlit walks had on his brother, soothing both his mind and, to a certain extent, his very soul. The results were something he just couldn't argue with.

That is, until earlier this morning when Hashirama had come in with a strange pink-haired woman held bridal-style in his arms. Now, the silver-haired shinobi was thoroughly scrutinizing his brother's rather questionable judgement.

Why bring an utter stranger into the clan compound?

However, in a surprising show of good judgment, Hashirama had called a meeting with the elders and his lieutenants to explain the circumstances that caused him to potentially jeopardize his clan's safety.

Tobirama snorted as he passed another residential building on his way to the Senju headquarters, his red eyes flashing in slight interest. His brother was stubborn, but by no means was he stupid. Something spectacular must have happened, and Tobirama had an interest in such things...

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oOoOoOoOoOoOo

Naruto looked up at the sounds of gigantic footsteps closing in rapidly on his position. He sprang to his feet to investigate.

After a few tense seconds spent crouched behind Ero-Sennin's statues, he was shocked by what he saw. Kurama stumbled into the clearing, badly injured. His face had numerous cuts, some of which hadn't closed yet, and he was limping with his right foreleg, heavily favoring his left side. His left ear hung flaccidly at the side of his face.

All the while, the fox's breathing was labored and harsh.

Naruto stepped out from behind Ero-Sennin's statue. "Kurama!" The fox's head snapped up in surprise.

**"Naruto?"** he managed to croak. Then his eyes narrowed on his container. **"_Naruto_..." **he growled murderously. Said blond gulped: Kurama looked thoroughly pissed, as though his battered condition was all Naruto's fault. **"We need to talk..."**

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oOoOoOoOoOoOo

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**Author's Note****:**_ I know, I suck. Pretty much nothing has happened in this chapter... To be honest, the only reason that there isn't more is because I'm stuck in the black-hole known as 'writer's block'._

_But anyway, the major points of this chapter:_

**The title:**_ I'm a huge LOST fan, and it just felt right. The chakra bubble tore apart in midair and Team Seven scattered... This is my tribute to an amazing television series._

**Sakura:**_ She's been brought to the Senju Clan Compound by Hashirama, and Tobirama doesn't exactly approve. Woe to the Senju clan when she finally wakes up..._

**Sasuke: **_He's on the ground and he's as badass as ever! Now, with his mother's voice reaching him when he was falling, that's never going to be properly explained, so I'll just say it here. Mikoto's soul was always with Sasuke, he was just never ready to hear her. The moment he touched the ground, she was erased..._

_Depressing, isn't it?_

_Now with that noblewoman who looked like his mother, I thought that it'd be a nice motivator for him to get involved, besides the fact that he didn't want the Uchiha clan's honor to be stained with a child's blood. To those of you who argue that if he didn't get involved and the child dies, it's not his fault: if he has the ability to make a difference in the outcome of the battle and _doesn't_, then he is responsible for the death of the little girl. Honor is funny like that._

_BUT, I've been dying to know: did the Tha-thump of those heartbeats work? Let me know what you think!_

**Naruto: **_So... Naruto actually doesn't remember anything since the sage took over his body. In a way, it makes sense because the dark force that took over him was totally in control._

_Now, he's wandering his labyrinth of a mindscape trying to piece together exactly what happened when he comes across the statues of Jiraya and Nagato, both of whom are locked in battle against the statue of a dragon. Needless to say, the entire setup is incredibly suspicious._

_All the while, Naruto's body is immobilized by pain in the real world. Where is he? We don't know yet._

_But don't worry. I will eventually cover the rest of the Naruto/Nagato/Jiraya battle. I was having a lot of fun writing that part._

**Story Recommendations:** _Wow. Maybe I should make this a habit! Anyway, I've got two that I want you guys to look at._

My Priest, My Son? by Grace of Hearts

_Seriously, her story is worlds above mine in pretty much every aspect of writing. Just give it a shot!_

_Again, here's the summary:_

Fifteen years ago, Naruto made an unsightly promise to Priestess Shion. The result of that promise came back to haunt him the day of his children's graduation from the academy, and stirs up trouble with his dream of becoming a shinobi. Meanwhile, dark forces from the past are stretching out over the ninja world once again. Could Naruto's priest-born son unconsciously be the cause?

_This is one of the best stories I have ever read. Ever. Hers is a _completely_ original concept with _fantastic_ characterization. You'll be missing out on a lot if you don't even try it out._

A Different Legend by Infamous Storm

_This is another author who is worlds above me. For starters, his story is _hilarious!_ His style is awesome enough to the point where I'm tempted to try and emulate his sense of humor. Here's the summary:_

Naruto is literally one of the most talented shinobi to have ever graced the ninja world in the past five hundred years, yet he uses his brilliance to get out of work rather than do it himself. Too bad having a fox in your gut complicates things... AU. Pairings in the works. I own nothing.

_He and I have been running ideas past each other for our respective stories, and I've got to say, he has some _really_ good concepts. Check his story out! You won't be disappointed._

_Anyway, until next time! Reviews help banish writer's block!_


	13. NOT A CHAPTER

**Author's Note****: **

_Sorry, this isn't an update. Please don't review to this "chapter". When chapter 10 is released, it will take the place of this author's note. So please, don't review._

_Anyway, it's recently been brought to my attention by an honest reviewer that this entire story is basically a 100-page prologue to the badass time-travel... And he/she was right. Frankly, it ticks me off that I've managed to drag the story out this long, so I've made an AU of _The Clan Wars_. _

_It's following the same basic plot, Team Seven in the Warring Clans Era, but the Sage of Six Paths with never make an appearance, nor will any celestial beings. This will effectively eliminate that excruciatingly long training arc._

_Now, for those of you who like this story, don't panic. I'll be writing both stories in sync with one another. The same major events will occur in both, but they will play out differently due to different characters, different skill-levels, and different decisions._

_Anyway, the story is called _Hands of Time_. Now that I've had a bit of experience in writing, it will be far better than _The Clan Wars_ ever was. The prologue's already up._

_Again, sorry for this not being an update!_

**Sincerely,**

** Duesal10**


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